Pakistan Taliban claims to have killed 23 kidnapped security personnel

A fraction of Pakistani Taliban on late Sunday night announced that it has killed 23 kidnapped security personnel in the country's northwestern tribal region of Mohmand Agency, local media reported. Umar Khalid Khurrasani, chief of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fraction based in Mohmand Agency, claimed through a video and written message that they had killed 23 kidnapped personnel of Frontier Constabulary (FC), a paramilitary force, on Sunday at some unknown place in Mohmand Agency, the reports said. "We killed the personnel to avenge the killings of our members in the state prisons. It's a message for the government to stop extrajudicial killing of our activists," Khurrasani said. The Taliban militants kidnapped the FC personnel on June 14, 2010 during an attack at the Shongari check-post in the Mohmand Agency. According to the reports, the militants may hand over the bodies of the personnel to some tribal elders or place them at somewhere in the region. The incident took place at a time when Pakistani media was reporting that the TTP could announce a ceasefire to further support the ongoing peace talks with the government. Local media reports said that the recent killings by the TTP's Mohmand Agency chapter showed that it might not agree to the peace talks or had some reservations. Khurrasani, in his message, said that they would decide about joining the peace negotiations after discussing it in their core committee meeting. There was no immediate official response to the killings of the security personnel.