Indies without commanders !?!?

[Arralen]

In two SP games I'm in atm (turn 40+/50+ resp.; very difficult research and indies @7), I found indy provinces without any commanders - they routed as soon as I attacked them. Battle report says:

Enemy combatants:
regular units 65, killed 65

=> no starting commander, no commander killed.

In at least one case I'm 100% shure they couldn't have been attacked by another player (AI) - it's province right on the edge of the map, and attackers would have had to pass through either other indies or my territory.

Next neighbours are Jotunheim, Ermor and Pangaea .. none of which features assassines.

So either the indies started without commander, or it was killed of by some means, or some AI player sent his assassine across 1/2 the map to kill indie commanders in my hinterland ??

[PrinzMegaherz]

Looming hell kills AI commanders very easily, but it requires some skill in blood magic

[Arralen]

I'm talking about INDIES here, not AI commanders.
And no, no globals where up which could have caused this.

[Taqwus]

Could be the result of a disease-causing item on an indy commander (not sure if that happens, actually) or a disease-causing site.

[atul]

I've seen AI assasins harvest indy commanders in strangest of places... So I'd say that'd be a definite possibility if you have assasin-nations in game. And some random event can give assasins to other nations, also. Watch your back.

[Karacan]

The most likely cause was a Seeking Arrow, which the AI appears to randomly cast at promising looking provinces from time to time.