Afghanistan executes 2 over bank attack

The Afghan government has executed two Taliban insurgents for a coordinated gun and suicide attack on a bank which left 38 people dead, it said Monday. Zar Ajam, who was Pakistani, and an Afghan named Mutihullah were sentenced to death earlier this month for their part in the attack on a branch of Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, in February. President Hamid Karzai personally gave the go-ahead for their sentences to be carried out, a statement from the Afghan intelligence service said. "They were executed at 11:00 am (0630 GMT) today and a third accomplice in the case was sentenced to 20 years in prison," said the statement, without specifying the method used. The brazen attack, which targeted security officials collecting their salaries, caused outrage among many in Afghanistan. After the killings, local television repeatedly screened closed-circuit television footage from inside the bank showing a man dressed in police uniform repeatedly shooting unarmed civilians. In an apparent confessional video, Ajam said he "enjoyed" killing people in the bank, believing they were all foreigners. Ajam's body was handed over to the Pakistani embassy in Kabul while the body of the second insurgent, Mutihullah, was given to his family in Jalalabad. In a separate incident, local government spokesman Abdul Marouf Rasikh said the Taliban beheaded a shepherd two days ago in the usually peaceful northern province of Badakhshan. Rasikh said the victim was accused of spying on Taliban. Taliban militants have been waging a bloody insurgency against Afghan government and NATO forces for almost a decade now. Afghan forces will start to take responsibility for seven cities and provinces from foreign troops next month, allowing some international forces to start withdrawing.A full drawdown of NATO-led, US-dominated foreign combat troops is due by the end of 2014.