Taleban video shows severed heads of Pakistan soldiers

KHAR, Pakistan: Pakistani security officials said Friday that 15 troops were missing following fighting with militants, as a Taleban video emerged showing what appeared to be the severed heads of a dozen soldiers.
The clashes on Tuesday came as part of a Pakistan army operation to repel Taleban militants who had crossed over from Kunar province in Afghanistan last Friday and occupied the village of Batwar in the Bajaur tribal district.
“At least 15 of our soldiers are still missing,” a senior security official told AFP.
Another security official said “more or less” that number of soldiers were missing but declined to give the exact total.
Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Sirajud Din sent AFP a video showing a militant commander posing with 12 heads arranged on the ground which he claimed were from soldiers they had killed.
“Praise be to God that the mujahideen in Bajaur agency have managed to kill the infidel soldiers of Pakistan,” he says.
“Many of them were killed by bullets, 12 of them as you see have been beheaded, you see 12 heads here, and more heads are on the way.”
The commander is flanked in the footage by armed men including one wielding a huge axe.
The video also showed the identity cards of the dead men, but military sources have so far not said whether they are the missing soldiers or confirmed that those shown in the video are Pakistani troops.
In July the TTP released a video showing the heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers they claimed to have killed in a cross-border attack on a checkpost in the northwestern district of Upper Dir.
Intelligence officials blamed that attack on loyalists of Pakistani cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who fled to Afghanistan after losing control of the Swat valley to the army.
Fighting in Bajaur in the past week has claimed at least 50 lives, including 31 militants and two members of a government-backed peace committee who were killed on Monday.
Bajaur is one of seven districts in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt, where Taleban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have carved out strongholds used to plot attacks on Pakistan.
Pakistan has lost more than 3,000 soldiers in the fight against homegrown insurgents but has resisted US pressure to do more to eliminate havens used by those fighting the Americans in Afghanistan.