WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- The FBI is using a private group the U.S. Defense Department no longer works with to probe the killing of six Americans in Afghanistan, officials said.
U.S. officials and private contractors told The New York Times the FBI began working with the spy group managed by former Central Intelligence Agency official Duane R. Clarridge soon after the Pentagon ended its relations with the group.
The group, operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is said to be helping the FBI investigate the killings of the aid workers in northern Afghanistan last August. FBI agents in Kabul have received intelligence reports from Clarridge's group about militants likely involved in the attacks, the report said.
The Times said it is not known how the FBI uses the group's information. The Pentagon is investigating whether the group and other private spies were hired in Afghanistan and Pakistan in violation of Defense Department policy.
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Clarridge, who oversees his group from his home using private financing, gets no remuneration but wants to show the government the usefulness of his operation, the report said. His group, called the Eclipse Group, provides information to an FBI task force in Kabul dealing with corruption in the Afghan government, the report said.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the bureau's work with Clarridge's operation in Afghanistan. His lawyer, a former federal prosecutor, was quoted as saying the Eclipse Group was cooperating with the Justice Department's investigation of the killings.
U.S. officials are not sure who was responsible for the deaths of the aid workers, who the Taliban had accused of being Western spies.
