Taliban execute 10 more Pakistani troops

The Taliban executed 10 more paramilitary troops from Pakistan’s Frontier Corps. From the BBC:

At least 10 paramilitary troops have been found shot dead in a volatile tribal area of north-west Pakistan, security officials say.

The men were abducted last month from the Orakzai region after militants attacked a military post.

Local officials say the bullet-riddled bodies of the men were found in a ravine close to the town of Dabori. It is unclear when they were killed….

The soldiers, who were members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps, had been missing since 21 December when 23 soldiers were attacked by up to 100 heavily-armed militants, a security official quoted by the AFP news agency said.

Last week, the Taliban executed 15 Frontier Corps troops after overrunning a fort in the settled district of Tank. The bodies were dumped in Miramshah, a stronghold of the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan [see LWJ report, Pakistani Taliban execute 15 Frontier Corps troops]. The Taliban have said they will soon release video of the execution.

While the Pakistani military and government have repeatedly claimed that the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has been ejected from tribal agencies such as Arakzai, that the terror group’s top two leaders are at each other’s throats, and that the group is divided and demoralized, the group continues to demonstrate that it can mass forces in the tribal areas as well as in the neighboring settled districts of the northwest.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.

Tags: ,

10 Comments

  • jayc says:

    And yet not a peep from the Pakistani media nor people. Damning.

  • gerald says:

    Bet they wish the Drones would come back now.Terrorists always hit the softest targets first. Guess what Pakistan. You’re IT.

  • philip says:

    Didn’t Pakistan raise holy hell because we accidentally killed 24 soldiers that were firing on us. Is Pakistan now going to go after the Taliban for murdering its soldiers.

  • sports says:

    The Paki’s are so weak and pathetic its despicalble. However, I still don’t feel sorry for Pakistan’s loss. They are a country that’s morally bankrupt with no beacon of hope. I’m sure glad that I’m an American whereas eveyday I know what I stand for and know and understand the laws that I will withhold. Thank God for the Pledge of Allegiance!

  • KaneKaizer says:

    It’s okay, they were killed by the Taliban. Pakistan only cares about their soldiers if they’re killed by the US military.

  • Rob Fuji says:

    What is the difference between these frontier troops and their regular army?
    Is it possible that their military is playing the same games WITHIN various branches? We usually hear that these “Frontier Paramilitary Troops” are getting killed by th eTaliban, but never the regular army troops.
    Can someone clarify?

  • Charu says:

    @Rob, AFAIK these Frontier troops are mostly Pashtun, although the commanding officers might be Punjabi. They are poorly trained and armed. The regular army is mostly Punjabi and they generally wage war with overwhelming force against unarmed or poorly armed civilians.
    The Pakistani military does play games with its branches composed of ethnic groups. For example, the paramilitary Northern Light Infantry, now a regular army regiment, was nearly wiped out by the Indian army during the Kargil mini-war. Its troops were mostly Shia and were made up of Gilgitis, Baltis, Brushos, Wakhis and Khowars – mountainous tribesmen. And which is why the Pakistani army leadership refused to acknowledge their role or even accept their corpses, leading to riots within these tribes after the war.

  • bill h says:

    it is all a charade. they do not care about their grunts any more than stalin did or mao did. they use each event as it best suits their needs.
    for me it is mostly a matter of indifference whether the pakis are killing the taliban or visa versa.
    did anyone notice the reference in the new National Defense guidance to an increased relationship with india. Do you think maybe this was inserted as a warning to the pakistani military?

  • Bengal Voice says:

    Not that I’m complaining… Let them go at each other’s throats. It saves the civilized world the trouble of mopping up the remains.

  • Neonmeat says:

    At the end of the day these men who died are just soldiers following orders. Like many men in the UK or the US they feel they want to serve and protect their country, there is nothing wrong with that just because their country happens to be Pakistan. In fact it is a very honourable and brave thing to do.
    The problem here is that the lives of these men are squandered for political gains by the very men they serve. As KaneKaiser puts it above the Pak Government only seems to mind when ISAF kills their troops, if its the Taliban they don’t even get a mention.

Iraq

Islamic state

Syria

Aqap

Al shabaab

Boko Haram

Isis