PESHAWAR: Taliban militants shot dead three men in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal belt after filming them confessing to spying for the United States, officials said Monday.

‘This is the first time in South Waziristan that militants have made confession videos. Before they just used to put notes on the bodies of alleged spies,’ Allahbagh Khan, a local administration official, told AFP.

The bullet-ridden body of local tribesman Tahir Khan was found dumped on Monday in a bazaar in Wana, the main town in the semi-autonomous South Waziristan tribal region, a notorious hub of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.

‘Khan, who was kidnapped 10 days ago, had multiple bullet wounds on his body,’ a security official told AFP.

A DVD found with the body showed Khan confessing to spying and passing on information that led to a series of US missile attacks in the region.

A note found on the body said: ‘All those spying for the US will suffer the same fate,’ according to the official.

Two more bodies of alleged US spies were found an hour later with similar notes and DVDs. One was a brother of Khan and the third man identified as Shabbir Khan, residents and officials said.

Almost every week, militants kidnap and kill tribesmen, accusing them of spying for the Pakistani government or US forces operating across the border in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters are leading an insurgency.

Pakistan's rugged tribal regions have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants fled across the border to escape the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.