The Taliban has released a video showing fighters executing 16 Pakistani tribal policemen in a hail of gunfire after they were captured in a cross-border raid from Afghanistan in June, Associated Press reports.
The video shows the policemen lined up on a hillside with their hands tied behind their backs, standing in front of armed Taliban fighters wearing scarves to hide their faces. Both the policemen and the insurgents are wearing shalwar kameez, the baggy shirt and pants common in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
One of the insurgents accused the men of executing six children from Pakistan's Swat Valley by firing squad.
"They are the enemies of the religion of Allah," the man said of the police officers.
He and several other fighters then opened fire on the policemen, who crumpled to the ground. Several of them were still moaning, and one fighter walked down the line shooting the policemen in the head.
The video was posted on the LiveLeak video sharing website and included a note saying the policemen were captured when the Taliban staged a cross-border raid from Afghanistan on June 1 in Pakistan's northwest Dir district. The video was first reported on by The Long
War Journal website.
Pakistan army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas confirmed the contents of the video and said the Taliban fighters who executed the policemen came from the Swat Valley, an area that used to be controlled by the militant group. The Pakistani military launched a large offensive in Swat in 2009, but many of the fighters slipped across the border into Afghanistan.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters crossed into Upper Dir on June 1 from Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province. They killed at least 30 members of the security forces over three days of fighting before being forced back across the border by the military, Abbas said.
The Pakistani military has accused Afghan and NATO forces of not doing enough to target Taliban sanctuaries in Kunar, where the US withdrew most of its forces over the last year.
Afghanistan and the US have level similar accusations against Pakistan, saying it must do more to target sanctuaries on its side of the border filled with militants who regularly launch attacks against NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The Afghan government has also accused Pakistan of firing hundreds of rockets into Kunar over the past few months and killing at least 40 people - an allegation denied by Pakistan.
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