Pakistani Troops Execute POW's in Swat Valley

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This amazing video of Pakistani troops executing Taliban POW's in the Swat Valley of Pakistan during heavy fighting there in Summer 2009 appeared on the Internet uploaded to YouTube by a user named 'drjack20061' on October 1, 2010. The footage was claimed by the Pashtun International Association. It is over 5 minutes long.

The Pakistani military says that the footage is fake and intended to defame the military. There is no proof that the tape is real, but the available evidence suggests that it may well be. For instance, there have long been reports of mass executions of young Pashtun Islamists in the Swat Valley during the Swat Rebellion in Summer 2009.

Especially towards the end of the campaign, large numbers of fighters were rounded up and disappeared by the Pakistani military. Many of their bodies reappeared later by the sides of roads, blindfolded and bound, with bullet wounds and signs of serious torture. It was for all intents and purposes the Salvadorization of the Swat Valley Rebellion.

This mass murder of the Swat Valley guerrilla army POW's seemed to have put an end to the rebellion for some time, though residents were in a state of high outrage mixed with impotent terror.

But some time after the Swat Rebellion had been stomped, a peculiar recrudescence arose again, Phoenix-like, from the bloodied bones this fall. The Swat Rebellion is starting to look like a zombie. You knock it down and even think you kill it, and it just gets up again and keeps coming at you.

A snapshot from the video as the men are lined up to be executed.

The video is shot with a cellphone and is very poor in quality. It seems to have been taken clandestinely under conditions of extreme risk. The photographer may have been under risk of be punishment if he was caught filming the incident.

For the first few minutes of the video, we see several young Pashtun men wearing traditional garb, blindfolded and bound, slowly being moved into a line that eventually reaches six men. On the other side, fully equipped Pakistani soldiers are lining up and fixing their automatic weapons. Their garb looks like what the Pakistani army wears. A bearded officer appears to be in charge.

In the background, you can sometimes hear what sounds like automatic weapons fire ricocheting in the air and artillery shells slamming away. We are obviously in the midst of a war zone.

The men, silent, are lined up. The bearded man goes from one to the other, saying making a very short statement that is inaudible. Then he moves back and the soldiers begin to speak. We can hear what they are saying, and they speak in Urdu. Urdu is the language of Pakistani army and is little spoken in Swat.

The soldiers ready their weapons, fire, and all of the men fall down. Soon they are moaning horribly. The creepy and awful sound reminds one of sheep baying or children wailing. The soldiers then advance forward and empty their weapons into the wailing bodies. The guns are very powerful, and the bodies lift off the ground with each hit. Soon the bodies are silent, and the horrible baying has stopped.

The video ends.