The killings took place on Thursday evening in North Waziristan, an al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary on the Afghan border where the United States has stepped up attacks with missile-firing drone aircraft, fuelling militant fears of spies.
Five masked militants paraded the hand-cuffed men before dozens of people in the Datta Kheil area and accused them of passing information to the United States on targets for its CIA-operated pilotless drone aircraft.
"They strapped explosives around their bodies and then blew them up," a Pakistani intelligence official in the region told Reuters by telephone.
Militants have killed hundreds of people they suspect are spies for the United States or the Pakistani government over the past few years.
They usually decapitate or shoot the suspects. Residents said this was the first time the militants had blown up suspected spies.
The United States wants Pakistan to extend its offensive to North Waziristan and go after militants there, particularly Afghan Taliban, who launch cross-border attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military, which has long seen the Afghan Taliban as tools for limiting the influence of old rival India in Afghanistan, says it will deal with North Waziristan but in its own time.
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