- PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Hundreds of people watched a man executed at gunpoint in a militant stronghold in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday after a Taleban court found him guilty of killing two brothers, residents and officials said.
The Taleban brought the man, blindfolded and with his hands tied by rope, into a football ground in Miranshah, the main town of the North Waziristan region near the Afghan border.
The execution highlighted the power the Taleban still wield in the region.
The Pakistan army mounted several offensives in the volatile northwest over the past year, killing hundreds of militants and capturing several of their strongholds, but it has not yet launched a crackdown in North Waziristan.
A Taleban court had earlier convicted the man over the killing the two brothers about two weeks ago. The court asked the family of the slain brothers to take their revenge under Islamic law.
"The heirs fired five gunshots and killed the suspect on the spot," a resident told Reuters by telephone.
The Taleban later handed over the man's body to his relatives, an official in Miranshah said.
Pakistan's northwestern ethnic Pashtun tribal lands along the Afghan border have never been under the full control of any government and have been Islamist militant hubs for decades.
Pakistan's military says it is overstretched and does not have enough resources to open another front when it has yet to consolidate its successes elsewhere.