Pakistani Taliban claim they killed retired spy

The Pakistani Taliban claimed Saturday it shot dead a retired Pakistani spy who once mentored its Afghan brethren and sided with the US against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The claim contradicted Pakistani government assertions in January that the ex-spy, Sultan Amir Tarar, died of a heart attack while being held captive by militants in north-west Pakistan.
If true, the killing of a man who openly sympathised with extremists would also underscore the degree to which Pakistani Taliban groups are willing to take on the state. ``We have killed him. We shot him,' Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told an Associated Press reporter via phone from an undisclosed location. Tarar better known as Colonel Imam once trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and gave personal tours of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region to US congressmen interested in supporting Afghan militiamen fighting Soviet occupation in the 1980s.