KHAR, July 24: Militants kidnapped two soldiers from a troubled tribal region, slit their throats and dumped the bodies with a warning note to others, officials said on Tuesday. The soldiers from the paramilitary Frontier Corps were abducted late Monday from a checkpost near Khar, the main town in the north-western Bajaur tribal district bordering Afghanistan, local official Sardar Yusuf told AFP.

The militants slashed their throats and dumped the bodies near a bazaar early Tuesday, with a note saying: “Those who support Musharraf and Bush will meet this fate,” he said.

Gen Pervez Musharraf is a key ally in US President George W. Bush's “war on terror” but is under growing pressure to curb militancy in the unruly tribal belt.

The killings come amid an unprecedented wave of attacks and suicide bombings sparked by this month's bloody army raid on militants holed up in Islamabad's Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa complex.

Militants in the same area last week beheaded a man accused of spying for US forces across the border.—AFP