Taliban Execute 21 Pakistani Paramilitary Soldiers after Abduction but one survives Miraculously

Pakistani Taliban militants abducted 23 policemen and succeeded in executing
21 who were captured in attacks on their posts late last week, however, two of them were lucky enough to survive the execution. One of the two survivors is in critical condition whereas the other one was discharged from hospital after necessary treatment.

Talibans lined up the policemen and shot them. One of the executed
survived whereas the other one fled, officials said. Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official in the Khyber region, said: "They were tied up and blindfolded." "They were lined up and shot in the head,' said Habibullah Arif, another local official.

The victims were from a paramilitary force recruited from members of ethnic Pashtun tribes in northwestern Pakistan. The militias support the government in its efforts against fighters battling the state, it added. The victims were found in the Jabai area of Frontier Region Peshawar, part of Pakistan's troubled tribal region.
The 23 policemen were kidnapped when fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked their posts. Two policemen were also killed in the attacks. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility and pledged to carry out further attacks on Pakistani security forces.

'We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution.'We didn't make any demand for their release because we don't spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting,' said Ihsanullah Ihsan.

The killing of the men followed two high-profile attacks in Peshawar this
month. Suicide bombers attacked Peshawar's airport on Dec. 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on Dec. 22. The violence underscores the Taliban's ability to carry out high-profile attacks in major cities even as the amount of territory they control has shrunk over the past three years.

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. 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.