Pakistan military chief vows probe into execution video

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Pakistani military on Friday ordered an investigation into a video that appears to show soldiers executing six civilians.

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 had 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 Pakistan's military. Washington strongly backed the Swat operation.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-based group that has documented summary executions and other abuses in Swat, said that although it could not 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.

Pakistan's military, a key antiterror ally of the United States, 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 at close range.

"It is not expected of a professional army to engage in excesses against the people whom it is trying to guard against the scourge of terrorism," said Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, according to a statement from the Pakistani military.

The military initially dismissed the video as a fake. On Friday, Kayani promised action against anyone connected to the crime should the video prove to be genuine. But he cautioned against "hasty conclusions about involvement of Pakistan army soldiers," saying that terrorists had disguised themselves with military uniforms in the past.

The video emerged on Facebook, from a group calling itself the Pashtuns International Association, and also on jihadist websites, where it was used to evoke outrage from extremists. Pashtuns are the ethnic group in Pakistan's northwest, including Swat.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said Ambassador Anne Patterson had raised the video issue with Kayani last week. "We're supportive of the idea of an investigation," he said. "We'll await the results."