The bodies of 15 members of Frontier Constabulary (FC) were found Thursday, almost two weeks after they were kidnapped from North Waziristan, officials said. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the killings. "We have received dead bodies of 15 kidnapped FC men", senior local FC commander Ali Sher Mehsud told AFP, revising the earlier death toll.
He said that the FC men were killed in Shawa," a small town in the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border. All the corpses, which arrived in a military hospital in the Tal town, had bullet wounds, he added. A local intelligence official also confirmed the killings. The FC personnel were kidnapped late last month during a night-time attack on a checkpoint in Tank area. Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed responsibility for the killings, telling AFP: "We have taken revenge for continued operations of security forces against us. They are in fact fighting for Americans."