By Carol Grisanti, NBC News
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- It’s the game-playing that draws the attention: A group of young boys are acting out the last moments of a suicide bomber, for fun.

In a disturbing 84-second video, posted on YouTube, one boy, perhaps 12 years old, is dressed in black, his face covered by a black scarf. He is the one who gets to blow himself up.  Beforehand, he hugs the other kids in what appears to be his final farewell. Some of the younger children find the whole charade rather funny and giggle in the film.

All the children, some looking as young as 5 or 6, are dressed in baggy pants and long tunics, the traditional dress of Pakistanis and Afghans. Some are wearing brown, others white, possibly to represent the different roles they have to play.

The bomber walks over to the boy in white who could be acting in the role of a government official. That boy holds his hand in the air in a gesture that is meant to try and foil the alleged bomber’s movements. The bomber then lifts his shirt as if to show a vest laden with explosives.  He kicks up a cloud of dust to depict the bomb that he has set off. The three boys dressed in brown and the one wearing white -- all appearing to be security or government officials -- fall dead. 

The portrayal of a suicide bombing has sparked concern and outrage. While the video has been posted on YouTube since early January, there’s no information on who posted it, where the event took place, and what was the motivation behind the piece. It’s been viewed more than 500,000 times.

Why?
Abdullah Khoso from the Pakistani “Society for the Protection of Children” (SPARC) said the video should be pulled from the Internet.  “Why is this on YouTube,” he asked during an interview with NBC News. “Why does YouTube allow something like this that obviously exploits children and distorts the image of these children?  Who benefits from watching this?  The recruiting targets would be the kids and families from the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan but they would not see this video because they don’t have access to internet,” he said.

The Taliban militants have often recruited teenagers and trained them to be suicide bombers.  When the Taliban first occupied the Swat Valley two years ago, many teenagers were inspired by their ruthlessness in rooting out the local criminals and the armed gangs, who were terrorizing the local population.  They started to play street games emulating them, not that far-fetched in a tribal society and not that far removed from kids elsewhere who play games of cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians. Later, many of those same kids joined the Taliban.

“Why aren’t there videos on YouTube of kids playing soldier games or paying violent internet games?” Khoso asked.  “Whose purpose is this video serving?”  Khoso thinks the video was put out for one of two purposes: either to show the West how evil kids from the border areas are, or to reinforce a picture of the Taliban as evil in recruiting children as future suicide bombers.

The music in the background is a Taliban jihadi song. The lyrics are in Pashto. “Throats are cut, bombs go off and then you can go to a nice place," meaning heaven, although the word is not used.

The Pakistani Taliban denied making the video, saying it was Western propaganda aimed at defaming their image in the eyes of their countrymen.

“This video has nothing to do with us,” said Ihsanullah Ihsan, one of the group’s spokesmen. “We did not ask these children to copy us in their games but it is clear that they are impressed with our cause and now want to imitate our brave fighters.”

Khoso feels the wide circulation of the video is dangerous.  “If it is to recruit children, if it is to use children as a tool to motivate and inspire evil, then why does YouTube help facilitate this.”

Mushtaq Yusufzai in Peshawar contributed to this report.

By NBC News’Carol Grisanti and Fakhar Rehman
LAHORE, Pakistan – Raymond Davis, a 36-year-old burly CIA contractor, was charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis Wednesday. Then in a swift turn of events, he was quickly pardoned because the victims’ families accepted monetary compensation in exchange for his freedom. 

Rana Sanullah, the law minister for Punjab province, where Davis was held, said that the families accepted the “blood money,” as it is called, and then signed papers to pardon him.

Raja Irshad, a lawyer with close ties to Pakistan’s army, was recently added to the legal team representing the families of the two victims. He told NBC News that 200 million rupees, ($2.34 million) was paid to the victim’s legal heirs. “I was present in the court,” said Irshad. “The deal was done in front of me.” If true, it would be the highest amount of blood money ever paid in Pakistan. 

U.S. officials confirmed Davis’ release Wednesday and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on it to reporters in Cairo.

"The families of the victims of the January 27 incident pardoned Mr. Davis and we are very grateful for decision. We appreciate the actions they took that enabled Mr. Davis to leave Pakistan and head home,” Clinton said.

She said that the U.S. government did not pay any compensation to the family and would not respond to reporter questions about whether the Pakistanis or a third party did.

Under Islamic law, an aggrieved party can accept compensation and in return pardon the crime. In Pakistan, the blood money formula is often used to settle murder cases.

Asad Manzoor, another lawyer representing the families, said his clients were forced to take the money and sign the pardon papers. “They were taken to the jail last night and forced to sign,” he said.

“Blood money was going to be the only way out,” a senior Pakistani government official told NBC News. “It had been decided that it was the only way this case would be settled.” 
 
Spy stakes 
Davis was working undercover for the CIA, allegedly, trying to infiltrate Lashkar-e-Taiba, (Army of the Pure) one of Pakistan’s most notorious militant groups. Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, was in all likelihood spying on him. Lashkar was trained and funded by the ISI, to fight India in Kashmir. They would not have liked American spies prying into their secrets.

“This is a question of national interests and we have to safeguard our interests,” a Pakistani intelligence official told NBC News, requesting anonymity. “We can work together with the CIA – but no one can be allowed to go it alone on our soil.”

In the end, Davis was at the center of a high stakes showdown between the CIA and the ISI. At stake was the entire relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, vital allies in the U.S.-led war on terror.

Shooting in broad daylight
“The Raymond Davis affair,” as it was called in Pakistan, is a story that could have been ripped straight off the pages of a John le Carré novel – except that it unfolded, for real, in broad daylight, in heavy traffic, in the city of Lahore and was witnessed by scores of onlookers.

In late January, Davis fatally shot two young Pakistani motorcyclists, at a busy intersection, from inside his car. He then jumped out and fired some more – shooting one victim down as he tried to run away.

Davis called for help and CIA agents in another car sped to his rescue, running over and killing a third Pakistani man and in a classic case of hit and run, sped away. 

Davis told the police the men were armed and trying to rob him. He pleaded self-defense. The police say Davis used excessive force shooting the men 10 times with his Glock pistol. The autopsy report says both men were shot in the back.

U.S. Embassy officials repeatedly demanded Davis’ immediate release on grounds that he was a diplomat and was entitled to blanket immunity under the 1961 Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations.

But Pakistan’s Foreign Office had issued Davis a non-diplomatic I.D. card upon his arrival according to Pakistan’s own laws – the Diplomatic and Consular Privilege Act, 1972 – and never recognized his full diplomatic status. U.S. officials insisted Pakistan is a signatory to the Vienna Conventions and that an international treaty trumped any technicality in their domestic laws.

Father: ‘I want blood for blood’
The families of the two men said they didn’t care about the laws governing diplomats – they just wanted revenge. 

Imran Haider, is the brother of Faizan Haider, the 21-year-old who was killed. He seemed convinced that his family would not consider a deal involving monetary compensation.

“My brother was shot in the back while he was running,” Haider told NBC News in an interview on Sunday. “We are seeking justice in the courts and pray to God that Raymond Davis will be punished for his crime. We do not want America’s money; we just want justice for our brother.”

Shamshad Ali, the father of one of the other victims, 17-year-old Faheem Shamshad, put it this way:

“This man must hang for the way he killed my son,” he said. “I want justice; I want blood for blood.”

Ali’s other son, Waseem Shamshad, emphasized that four people are dead because of Davis. Faheem’s wife committed suicide by swallowing rat poison when she heard Faheem was dead. They were married only four months.

“We have suffered an enormous loss,” he stressed. Davis killed our baby brother. Then my sister-in-law killed herself. Our friend, Faizan died with Faheem and an innocent Pakistani was run over and killed – that driver never even stopped his car. We cannot accept blood money and pardon him. If we do, the Americans will just keep coming and killing us.”

Pakistan’s religious parties and right wing groups used the Davis affair to whip up a new brew of anti-Americanism on the Pakistani streets and warned the weak civilian government not to cave to U.S. pressure. Demonstrators across the country protested with banners and slogans to “Hang Raymond Davis.”

There are reports the families have already left the country – their cell phones are switched off and the doors to their home are allegedly unlocked with no one inside. Neighbors say they feared reprisals from some of Pakistan’s hardliners.

It is not clear if Raymond Davis will have to face U.S. justice in the killing of the two Pakistanis. But a deal was done. So for the meantime Davis is a free man, on his way home – his long ordeal finally over. 

By NBC News’ Carol Grisanti and Mushtaq Yusufzai

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Sultan Ameer Tarar, a U.S.-trained former Pakistani spymaster who guided the Taliban as they rose to power in Afghanistan, has died – after being kidnapped by the same people he once helped.

And now the group is apparently holding his body for ransom.
 
A colorful figure also widely known by the code name Col. Imam, Tarar was instantly recognizable by his small white turban and army camouflage jacket.

Once asked if he was copying Osama Bin Laden by wearing the same style turban, he replied, “No, Osama has copied me.”
 
Mullah Omar’s trainer
Tarar was trained as a commando with U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1974 as part of routine training of Pakistani forces by the U.S. at the time.

Later, as an American ally, Tarar helped the CIA train, support and funnel thousands of young fighters into Afghanistan during the 1980s to fight the Soviet invaders. After the Soviets’ defeat in Afghanistan, former President George H.W. Bush acknowledged Tarar’s contribution by inviting him to the White House.
 
“I trained 95,000 fighters over a 10-year period,” Tarar told NBC News in an interview last year. “I trained all the trainers for the jihad; I was in charge.”
  
He was perhaps best known for teaching a young cleric, Mullah Omar, how to wage guerrilla warfare. Omar went on to become the leader of the Taliban and the spiritual head of the movement.

More recently, U.S. government officials believed that he was among a group of retired officers for the ISI, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, who continued to help the Taliban fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan. However, Tarar always denied the charge. 
 
Best laid plans went awry
Despite his ties to the Afghan Taliban, Tarar was kidnapped last March as he traveled with another retired ISI official, Khalid Khawaja, and British-Pakistani journalist, Asad Qureshi, in North Waziristan.

They planned to make a documentary on the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, interview their leaders and highlight the effects of the U.S. drone strikes on the civilian population in North Waziristan.

But almost from the beginning, their plans went terribly wrong.

Soon after they arrived in North Waziristan, a little known Taliban offshoot, The Asian Tigers, kidnapped the three men and demanded a ransom of $25 million. A few months later, the militants accused Khawaja of spying for the CIA and executed him. Qureshi, the journalist, was freed after ransom money was paid to two Asian Tiger commanders – but Tarar was stuck in captivity.

Taliban and tribal sources told NBC News that Tarar’s health had deteriorated while he was in their custody. “Talks had been underway for his release, when he suffered a heart attack and died,” said a senior Taliban commander.
 
The family has still not received any official confirmation of Tarar’s death, nor word about where, or if, they can collect his body. 

“Someone called us this morning to say that our relative is no more, but would not give us anymore details,” a close family member told NBC News, requesting anonymity out of fear of the Taliban.

However, one Taliban source told NBC News that the group was still holding Tarar’s body. “We have informed the family and the Pakistan government of our demands before we hand over the body,” he said.

The Taliban are, allegedly, demanding that the Pakistan army release five of their most prominent fighters from prison and that the family pay an undisclosed amount in ransom for them to release the body.

‘They are ruthless’
Before venturing off into North Waziristan last year, Tarar spoke often with foreign journalists. He insisted that negotiations with the Taliban were the only way to end the 10-year-old war. However, his kidnapping and death demonstrates the complexities and changing relationships among the different parties in the conflict and the disparities among the various groups of militants.

Tarar surely felt that he would be welcome among the Taliban in the tribal areas because of his previous ties to them and to their leader, Mullah Omar. It was a fatal miscalculation.
 
“I knew him well; we worked together when I was running the ISI. He was a very good officer,” said Javed Ashraf Qazi, a former director-general of the ISI. “He should not, however, have attempted to play any kind of role to reconcile the Taliban in his private capacity because as we all can see dealing with the Taliban is dangerous business. They are ruthless.”

By NBC's Carol Grisanti and Fakhar ur Rehman

ITTAN WALLI, Pakistan – In early November, in the dusty city of Sheikhupura in Pakistan’s heartland, Asia Bibi, an illiterate Christian woman and mother of five, was sentenced to death by hanging under the country’s blasphemy laws.

Her crime? She allegedly insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

Almost immediately, the death sentence unleashed international condemnation, and put pressure on Pakistan’s government to overturn the verdict and amend the country’s blasphemy laws – a holdover from a 19th century penal code designed to protect minority religious sects during British colonial times. 

The law was radicalized during the 1980’s under the military dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq. He imposed life sentences, even death, for blasphemy to appease the mullahs and legitimize his grip on power.

Pope Benedict XVI appealed for clemency but hard-line Islamic groups have threatened civil war if the government pardons Bibi or attempts to amend the law.

Bibi’s husband, 48-year-old Ashiq Masih, is desperate, convinced radical Islamic groups are aiming to kill the family. He has gone into hiding, along with his children, sheltered inside a Christian colony in an outlying district of Sheikhupura. Masih insists his wife was framed, a victim of old score-settling in their village of Ittan Walli, where his family was just one of two Christian families.

“She was picking berries with other women, when she was sent to get water,” her husband said. “One of the women refused to drink the water after my wife dipped her cup into the bucket. This woman said it was contaminated because it was touched by a Christian.” According to Masih, all the women then started taunting his wife, and shouting insults against her mother and their children. Bibi just repeated the same insults back at them. “The name of the holy prophet never came up.”

At the time, Masih said he thought that was the end of it. It wasn’t. 

“Five days later, the local cleric came to our house, followed by an angry mob, and dragged my wife away,” he said, recalling the incident that took place in June 2009. They beat her, ripped off her clothes and accused her of insulting the prophet. Then they locked her up in a house until the police came to take her away.”

Anjum Naveed / AP

Ashif Masih, right, husband of Christian woman Asia Bibi who had been sentenced to death, and daughters Sidra Shahzadi and Isham Ashiq listen to Pakistani minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, unseen, during a meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan on Nov. 24.

In an interview with NBC News, Qari Muhammed Salem, the local cleric in Ittan Walli, accused Masih of lying. “I talked to everyone who witnessed this incident and she is guilty,” he said. “She confessed to the crime in front of the entire village and then she begged for forgiveness,” he insisted. 

“She even told me she said these things in rage during a heated argument and would never think of blasphemy,” he said. Salem said he called the police to lock her up, only to protect her, because the angry mob would have killed her.

Najma Yousaf, a sister of Bibi, still lives in the family home in Ittan Walli, a rural village of approximately 10,000 inhabitants, almost all Muslim. “I’m not afraid to live in our house,” she said. “The villagers are all very nice with me, my husband and our children. They are angry with my sister.” 

Bibi, 45, is the first woman condemned to death under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. While no one has ever been executed, most of the accused – all men – languish in prison alone and forgotten. Human rights groups point out that the law is a convenient way to settle scores, often among the Christian community who total about 2 million of Pakistan’s 175 million people.

In a statement released from New York, Human Rights Watch, called for Pakistan’s government to immediately introduce legislation to repeal the blasphemy laws.

“Asia Bibi has suffered greatly and should never have been put behind bars,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The injustice and fear the blasphemy law spawns will only cease when this heinous law is repealed.”

Other minority groups are targets too. The Ahmadis, an Islamic minority sect that has been declared non-Muslim under Pakistani law, are often the victims of intimidation and violence and incarcerated under the blasphemy laws. In addition, they are prime targets of the Pakistani Taliban who, in the past, have blown up their mosques, killing hundreds, according to Human Rights Watch.

STR/PAKISTAN / Reuters

Protesters hold up placards demanding the release of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, at a rally in Faisalabad, in Pakistan's Punjab province, Nov.29.

Bibi’s lawyer has filed an appeal with the High Court in Lahore and Pakistan’s President Asif Zardari may consider an unconditional pardon if the appeals process takes too long.

So far, the Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti submitted a report on the case to Zardari. He concluded that the charges were baseless. In an interview with NBC News, he said that Bibi could be released on appeal in the high court. “We should wait for the court proceedings but if the court delays then the president may pardon her on the basis that she is innocent,” he said.

Bhatti is well aware of the possible consequences of an acquittal. Judges have been assassinated for freeing victims and several accused persons have been gunned down inside prisons or outside courtrooms as they walked free.

“We will protect Asia and her entire family,” the minister said. “No harm will come to them.”

Sidra, Bibi’s 18-year-old daughter, takes her younger sisters to the jail every Tuesday to visit their mother. “My mother tells us not to cry and to be strong,” she said.  “But now, my mother is crying, so how can we be strong.”

With media reports of a possible pardon for Bibi, hard line Islamic groups have held demonstrations in cities across Pakistan. They’ve warned Zardari of a severe backlash if he commutes her death sentence. 

At one rally, organized by “The Movement for the Protection of the Prophet’s Honor” denounced any attempt to change the law. “We are ready to sacrifice our life for the prophet,” they chanted. 

By Mujeeb Ahmad, NBC News

KARARGAH, Afghanistan – Ever since he joined the Taliban movement in Kandahar in 1994, Mullah Aminullah has been a close aide of the movement’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar.

Mujeeb Ahmad/ NBC News

Mullah Aminullah, a close aide to the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Omar, during a recent interview.

Aminullah’s loyalty to Omar is unshakeable; the two men are from the same tribe and grew up together in Uruzgan province in Afghanistan. When he first joined the Taliban, he was Omar’s personal cook but as he gained the trust of the organization’s senior leaders was made a commander.

After the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban in 2001, scattering its leadership, Aminullah and Omar remained in touch with each other – that is, as much as Omar keeps contact with anyone.
 
Just a few days after word spread in the Western media about high-level peace talks between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and influential members of the Taliban, I tried to get word to Omar’s deputy, Mullah Zakir Qayum, to find out what was really going on.

That request was quickly refused. A short time later, Aminullah sent word that he would see me and make arrangements to escort me to Karargah, a tiny village of mud huts on the way to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

With my Pakistani identity card, I was able to enter Afghanistan from the Chaman border crossing in Balouchistan Province.  All I needed to say, to both the Pakistani and Afghan border guards, was that I was shopping for a particular car, an old Japanese model, and a friend in Afghanistan knew where I could buy one.  After a quick body search, I crossed over the Pakistan border and was on my way to the Afghan town of Spinboldak where three men on motorbikes were waiting for me.

I was asked to hand over my cell phones and then helped on to a motorbike and blindfolded for what seemed like more than an hour’s journey to finally meet Aminullah.

‘We are winning, why should we negotiate’
More than six feet tall and slender, Aminullah is around 45 years old, which makes him approximately two years younger than Omar.  He is an imposing figure who never takes off his dark glasses and stroked his thick black beard as we chatted and drank tea. His bravado was evident and the 250 fighters under his command seemed to be in awe of him.

“All of these reports of peace talks are nonsense,” Aminullah said. “This is just propaganda by the U.S. and its NATO allies to hide their defeat on the battlefield. We are winning, why should we negotiate.”

“So in your opinion, what is the current status of the U.S. and NATO on the battlefield,” I asked.

“Let me ask you that question,” Aminullah shot back. “Which U.S. or NATO operation has been successful? Has the operation in Helmand been a success?”

Aminullah was quick to answer his own questions.

“British forces cannot come out of their bunkers. What about the U.S. operation in Marjah? That certainly failed. And whatever small gains they say they are making in Kandahar will fail too.” 

Is Mullah Omar really in charge?
I was curious to know how Mullah Omar was still able to control the Taliban and direct the war in Afghanistan while being a recluse; or was Omar’s importance simply more fabrication than fact?  Aminullah was patient and considered his response.

“There is no question that Mullah Omar is our supreme leader and commander,” Aminullah said in a low voice. "Those who try and downplay his role are either ignorant or misguided.”

NBC News

Mullah Aminullah, a Taliban leader, sits with NBC News' reporter Mujeeb Ahmad after a recent interview in Karargah, Afghanistan.

“He communicates with us through messengers on a weekly basis – sometimes there are 10 different messengers before the message reaches the intended person. And the messengers are never the same; each communication will have different men to deliver Omar’s orders,” he stressed.

I asked Aminullah if he knew where Mullah Omar was or for that matter where Osama Bin Laden might be.

“No one knows where Osama is,” Aminullah laughed. “The last time I saw Mullah Omar was in August 2009 in Nimroz Province. It is more than one year now, so I am hoping he will send word that we can meet again somewhere soon." He paused and went on, "I am looking forward to that.”

‘Leave us alone’
“What would be the Taliban’s conditions to hold peace talks with the Karzai government?” I asked.

“Our position has never changed and the Americans, NATO and Karzai know it all too well. Before there can be any peace negotiations, all foreign forces have to leave our lands; only then can there be peace,” Aminullah said.

As I was preparing to leave, Aminullah grabbed me by the hand and said: “Look, the Americans call us terrorists; what terrorist act did we ever commit? They traveled 10,000 miles to us and forced us to wage jihad against the Russians, who were their enemies, and now they are waging a war against us. We are Afghans and Afghanistan is our country. All we want is for the Americans to leave us alone; only then will there be peace in Afghanistan.”

NBC News’ Carol Grisanti in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Related blog: Is the Taliban really talking?