Pro-Taliban militants have killed three of about 225 Pakistani soldiers held captive since late August in a tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said today.
The bodies were found near an electricity grid station in the Jandola area of South Waziristan.
A militant spokesman in South Waziristan had threatened yesterday to execute three soldiers every day unless security forces stopped operations in the area.
The militants had seized more than 240 soldiers when their supply convoy was blocked by a landslide in the mountains of South Waziristan, but they released 25 soldiers last month after the army agreed to abandon two posts in the area.
The militants have also demanded the release of captured comrades and withdrawal of troops from the posts in the region as part of a peace accord with the government that has since broken down.
Violence has intensified in Waziristan since July, with a spate of suicide attacks and several kidnappings of soldiers.
Twenty-six people, including 10 militants and two soldiers, were killed yesterday in a landmine blast and an attack on a checkpost in North Waziristan.