Bodies found in Swat revenge attacks: Pakistan officials

The bullet-riddled bodies of 11 more suspected Taliban rebels believed killed by avenging residents have been found in Pakistan's northwest Swat valley, officials said Tuesday.

Pakistan's military claims to have cleared Swat of Islamist extremists in an offensive launched earlier this year after militants extended their grip into the valley, terrorising residents with public beheadings and other violence.

"The bodies of 11 people, mostly militants, have been found in three different areas of Swat on Monday," a senior security official told AFP. "The bodies had bullet wounds and some had signs of violence."

Earlier this month, 18 suspected militants turned up dead in Swat under similar circumstances, and a military official said that since July, almost 200 bodies of militants and some civilians had been found in the region.

"We have received information that residents fearing a Taliban comeback were killing them," said the military official, who refused to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Atif-ur-Rehman, administrative chief of Swat district, said that 192 bodies had been found, but gave no further details.

Human rights activists have raised concerns about the extra-judicial killings, which they say could have been carried out by security forces.

"These imprudent acts must be stopped... There should be an investigation into who killed them," said Iqbal Haider, co-chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

"If we condemn the Taliban for brutality and barbarism, then the response by security forces should not be equally barbaric."

The military has denied involvement in the killings.

Swat slipped out of government control after radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah mounted a violent campaign in which his followers beheaded opponents, burnt schools and fought government troops to enforce sharia law.

The Pakistani army launched an offensive in late April to dislodge Taliban guerrillas from the districts of Buner, Lower Dir and Swat after rebels flouted a peace deal and marched further south towards the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan says more than 1,930 militants and over 170 security personnel have been killed in the offensive since late April, but the death tolls are impossible to verify independently.

Pakistani authorities have also advocated the establishment of local militia in the northwest to try and keep the Taliban at bay, amid reports that the Islamist fighters have simply melted into the mountains to regroup.

Fazlullah also remains at large, and clashes continue to erupt in Swat.

The military said Tuesday that 11 people who had worked with the Taliban had surrendered to police in the region in the past day, while three suspected rebels were killed and seven others arrested.