PESHAWAR, Aug 14: Suspected Taliban militants beheaded one of 16 kidnapped troops and threatened to kill more unless the authorities release 10 of their men, officials said on Tuesday.

The headless body of the soldier from the Frontier Corps was dumped early on Tuesday near the main market in Jandola town.

A note found near the body warned that other soldiers would be murdered if the demands were not met, local official Latifur Rehman told AFP.

The kidnappers gave no deadline, he said. Unidentified gunmen abducted the troops last Thursday.

The militants, believed to be from the Mehsud tribe, said they would swap the soldiers for their 10 detained colleagues, three of whom are held on charges of plotting bomb blasts and suicide attacks.

Officials in Wana, South Waziristan, said the kidnappers had not yet made direct contact with the local authorities.

The discovery of the corpse coincides with the expiry of a deadline that the authorities gave the Mehsud tribe to return the kidnapped soldiers or face a heavy fine under the local tribal code, the officials said.—AFP