AFP - PAKISTANI Taleban militants released a graphic video on Sunday showing the beheading of a Polish engineer whom they said was killed because Islamabad refused to free detained insurgents.
The tape, seen by an AFP correspondent here, was released one day after a spokesman for Pakistan's umbrella Taleban group said its men had decapitated Piotr Stanczak, who was seized in the volatile north-west on September 28.
Pakistan has seen a number of kidnappings of foreign nationals in recent months, many of them in the north-west, where Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants have been holed up since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Authorities in Islamabad are also hunting for an American UN worker abducted a week ago in the south-western city of Quetta. A shadowy ethnic Baluch rebel group has claimed responsibility for that kidnapping.
Mr Stanczak, who was working in Pakistan for a Polish energy company, was seized by armed men in the town of Attock, about 70km north-west of the capital Islamabad. His two drivers and bodyguard were killed.
The video released by Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) shows Mr Stanczak sitting cross-legged on a carpet, wearing a khaki shalwar kameez.
The Polish man made a brief statement in English in response to questions posed by his captors, urging his government to withdraw its contingent of about 1,100 troops from Afghanistan, where they are helping fight Taleban insurgents.
In the next scene, Mr Stanczak is sitting in the same position, but blindfolded. A masked man is shown beheading him with a knife, while two men stand guard behind him, holding AK-47s at the hostage's head.
A masked militant is then shown saying Mr Stanczak was killed because Taleban prisoners were not released and warning that other foreign hostages could meet the same fate, without claiming to have specific hostages in captivity.
A black banner seen in the beheading video reads: 'Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan, Darra Adam Khel'. Darra Adam Khel is a town near Peshawar, which is on the edge of Pakistan's violence-wracked tribal areas on the Afghan border.
Polish deputy foreign minister Jacek Najder earlier said authorities in Warsaw were still awaiting official confirmation of Mr Stanczak's killing.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk previously said Poland had received 'informal confirmation' of the engineer's death, while a spokesman for the Polish embassy in Islamabad said it considered the TTP claim to be '99.99 per cent true'.
TTP is led by tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who has been accused by US and Pakistani officials of masterminding the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.
This is serious.
The tape, seen by an AFP correspondent here, was released one day after a spokesman for Pakistan's umbrella Taleban group said its men had decapitated Piotr Stanczak, who was seized in the volatile north-west on September 28.
Pakistan has seen a number of kidnappings of foreign nationals in recent months, many of them in the north-west, where Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants have been holed up since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Authorities in Islamabad are also hunting for an American UN worker abducted a week ago in the south-western city of Quetta. A shadowy ethnic Baluch rebel group has claimed responsibility for that kidnapping.
Mr Stanczak, who was working in Pakistan for a Polish energy company, was seized by armed men in the town of Attock, about 70km north-west of the capital Islamabad. His two drivers and bodyguard were killed.
The video released by Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) shows Mr Stanczak sitting cross-legged on a carpet, wearing a khaki shalwar kameez.
The Polish man made a brief statement in English in response to questions posed by his captors, urging his government to withdraw its contingent of about 1,100 troops from Afghanistan, where they are helping fight Taleban insurgents.
In the next scene, Mr Stanczak is sitting in the same position, but blindfolded. A masked man is shown beheading him with a knife, while two men stand guard behind him, holding AK-47s at the hostage's head.
A masked militant is then shown saying Mr Stanczak was killed because Taleban prisoners were not released and warning that other foreign hostages could meet the same fate, without claiming to have specific hostages in captivity.
A black banner seen in the beheading video reads: 'Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan, Darra Adam Khel'. Darra Adam Khel is a town near Peshawar, which is on the edge of Pakistan's violence-wracked tribal areas on the Afghan border.
Polish deputy foreign minister Jacek Najder earlier said authorities in Warsaw were still awaiting official confirmation of Mr Stanczak's killing.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk previously said Poland had received 'informal confirmation' of the engineer's death, while a spokesman for the Polish embassy in Islamabad said it considered the TTP claim to be '99.99 per cent true'.
TTP is led by tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who has been accused by US and Pakistani officials of masterminding the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.
This is serious.
