Two boys, aged 10 and 16, were beheaded by the Taliban for allegedly spying for the police.

The boys were captured while foraging for food in trash bins near the police headquarters in Kandahar, Afghanistan. They were accused of accepting food from the police in exchange for information, according to government officials.

Sources have confirmed that the boys' names were Khan and Hameedullah. They were searching for leftover food to bring home to their hungry families. Jamal Agha, the chief of the district in which the boys' bodies were recovered, said, "The boys were on their way back... when they were stopped by Taliban insurgents who beheaded them... Both of them were innocent children and had nothing to do with government or foreigners."

The Taliban has beheaded dozens of people in the past couple of years, accusing their victims of helping the government and its foreign allies led by the United States. A Taliban spokesperson disputed that the group was not involved in the murdering of the boys.

Officials say the boys were simply looking through bins in order to find food to feed their families. The 10-year-old boy was known to be very poor and often took spare food from the police to give to his family. It is believed that the Taliban beheaded the boys as a warning to other villagers not to cooperate with the Afghan government.

The district in which the boys were gruesomely slain is the origin place of the Taliban. Last year, in the same area, a 16-year-old boy was accused of spying for the government and subsequently beheaded and skinned. The next month, a 7-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy were kidnapped and beheaded in separate incidents.