Pakistani Taliban execute captured policemen
At least 21 men who belonged to a paramilitary force shot dead in Peshawar by
their captors, say government officials.
Last Modified: 30 Dec 2012 07:56
An injured policeman in hospital after surviving an attack by Taliban fighters
outside the city of Peshawar [AFP]
Government officials say 21 out of 23 tribal policemen believed to have been
kidnapped by the Taliban have been executed by their captors in northwest
Pakistan.
"We found 21 bullet riddled bodies of security personnel a short while ago in
an uninhabited area," local government official Naveed Akbar Khan told the AFP
news agency on Sunday.
"One was found alive but wounded and admitted to hospital while another managed
to escape unhurt."
Khan said officials found the bodies shortly after midnight on Sunday after
being notified by one policeman who had escaped.
The victims were from a paramilitary force recruited from members of ethnic
Pashtun tribes in northwestern Pakistan, reported the Reuters news agency. The
militias support the government in its efforts against fighters battling the
state, it added.
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the capital, Islamabad, said the
policemen were captured after 400 Taliban fighters reportedly attacked their
posts.
"After the levies [local name for police] discovered that this was some sort of
a surprise attack, there was resistance. Two of the levies forces were killed
[and] 23 were taken away," he said.
"After that the tribal jirga tried to negotiate with the Taliban but those
talks failed, after which the levies were taken to the cricket ground and they
were shot."
The slain policemen were found in the Jabai area of Frontier Region Peshawar,
part of Pakistan's troubled tribal region.
The 23 policemen went missing before dawn on Thursday when fighters armed with
rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two posts. Two
policemen were also killed in the attacks.
Gul Shehzad, another government official, said authorities received information
just before midnight that some bodies were lying in the wilderness, within
about four kilometres of the camps.
"The hands of soldiers were tied with rope before they were shot," Shehzad told
AFP.
He said Taliban fighters had accepted the responsibility for the kidnappings.
Havens for Taliban
The camps are outside Peshawar, the main city in northwest Pakistan, close to
the restive tribal areas that border Afghanistan, and are regarded as havens
for Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked fighters.
In August, the Pakistani Taliban released a video showing what appeared to be
the severed heads of a dozen soldiers, after the military said 15 troops had
gone missing following fighting with gunmen in the Bajaur tribal district.
There has been a surge in attacks in northwest Pakistan in the past two weeks,
including a suicide bombing on a political meeting in Peshawar on Saturday that
killed Bashir Bilour, the second top politician in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, saying Bilour, an
outspoken critic of the fighters, was assassinated in revenge for the death of
one of the movement's "elders".
Pakistan has lost more than 3,000 soldiers in the fight against homegrown
rebels but has resisted US pressure to do more to eliminate havens used by
those fighting the Americans in Afghanistan.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies
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