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Graphic footage records cold-blooded killing of police captured when Taliban crossed from Afghanistan into north-west Pakistan The Pakistani Taliban have released graphic video footage of the execution of 16 Pakistani policemen and tribal guards who were captured last month following a cross-border raid from Afghanistan. The video shows a masked Taliban commander angrily denouncing the men lined up before him, hours after they were captured in a firefight. “These are the enemies of Islam,” he declares. Moments later the men are killed a hail of automatic gunfire, followed by individual shots to the head from a Taliban fighter who moves down the line of bodies, trailed by the camera. Pakistani military spokesman General Athar Abbas said the footage was authentic. It had been made in north-western Dir district in the aftermath of a 1 June cross-border raid by Pakistani militants sheltering across the border in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. “Up to 60 terrorists under the command of three leaders from Swat crossed from Afghanistan, killing 30 security personnel and burning six schools,” he said, describing the victims as a mixture of local border police and recruits from tribes. Pakistan carried out a sweeping operation against the Taliban in Swat in 2009 but some fighters and commanders fled across the border into Afghanistan. In the video, which first appeared on the LiveLeak website, the Taliban leader accuses the men of being responsible for the execution of six children in Swat. “We will avenge the death of the children by doing the same to them,” he says, before opening fire. The footage underscores the ruthlessness of fighting in Pakistan’s border areas, where the army has also faced allegations of massacres. Last year a separate video showed uniformed men clinically executing six suspected militants, reportedly in Swat. The army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, promised to investigate the shootings last October but has yet to publish any findings. Abbas said preliminary findings were “inconclusive” but could not say when the probe would be finalised. The latest video highlights wider tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the eastern border area, where uneasy neighbours have traded angry accusations in recent months. Since last year Pakistan has complained of raids into its territory by Pakistani Taliban fighters sheltering in parts of Kunar and Nangarhar provinces that were previously occupied by US forces. The Pakistani army has responded with intense cross-border artillery barrages that have killed up to 50 people and caused up to 12,000 Afghan civilians to flee their homes, according to United Nations and Afghan officials. The shelling has whipped up a furious storm of protest in Kabul, with loud denunciations from President Hamid Karzai’s government, but Afghan security forces have not retaliated militarily. The US military has refused to intervene. Washington has withdrawn all its forces from Nangarhar and most from Kunar, but special forces teams still operate in the area, carrying out raids on Taliban commanders. The tensions underscore the growing military complexities as western forces, regional armies and myriad guerrilla groups manoeuvre in anticipated of expected peace talks. The Pakistani indignation at cross-border raids is a change from the predominant narrative of recent years, when the country has long faced allegations that its intelligence and military have allowed the Afghan Taliban to use bases inside Pakistan to attack western forces in Afghanistan. Taliban Afghanistan Pakistan Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk