ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Pakistani military on Friday ordered an investigation into a video that appears to show soldiers executing six civilians, following the recording's exposure in the international media and U.S. pressure.
The gruesome video, which was posted on the Internet last month, supposedly was filmed in the Swat valley, the northwest region where the Pakistani military launched an offensive in May 2009 against Taliban extremists who'd annexed it.
The emergence of the jerky recording, which appears to have been filmed by a mobile phone camera, follows reports of hundreds of extrajudicial killings in Swat by the Pakistani military. Washington strongly backed the Swat operation.
Friday, Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-based group that's documented summary executions and other abuses in Swat, said that although it couldn't comment on the authenticity of this video, sufficient evidence of violations in Swat exists to invoke American laws that require a cutoff in funding to units found guilty of war crimes. The Pakistani military, a key anti-terror ally, receives $2 billion a year in American aid.
The undated video, which lasts more than five minutes, shows six young men, blindfolded, with their hands tied behind their backs, led into a compound and lined up by figures wearing what appear to be Pakistani army uniforms. A firing squad of at least six uniformed men assembles and shoots the civilians. They fall to the ground, and agonized moaning can be heard. Several uniformed men then move in and finish the victims off with rifle shots from close range.
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