Pakistan Army Probes Video of Massacre

Pakistan's army chief ordered an inquiry Friday into video clips that show men in soldiers' uniforms gunning down a group of bound and blindfolded detainees. The footage has raised concern over possible extrajudicial killings by a military that receives billions in U.S. aid.

The two clips were apparently shot by cell phones and have been circulating on the Internet. The footage is grainy and shows no time stamps, and part of the army inquiry's mission is to determine whether those shown in uniform were actually soldiers, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's statement said.

"It is not expected of a professional army to engage in excesses against the people whom it is trying to guard against the scourge of terrorism," the general said, though he cautioned that militants had in the past posed as soldiers.

The clips were first posted about two weeks ago on a jihadist web forum. CBS News' Khaled Wassef, who found the videos, says the story is likely gaining traction in Pakistan as al Qaeda's media operation as-Sahab recently included the clip in a video production highlighting alleged atrocities committed by Pakistani forces against civilians.

As-Sahab has been trying to disseminate the material to Pakistani media outlets, raising the profile of the alleged killings and likely prompting the Pakistani officials to act, says Wassef.

The person who posted the video in question claimed the footage was from Pakistan's Swat Valley, the scene of a major army offensive against Taliban militants in 2009.

The Pakistani army has been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings in Swat ever since launching the offensive in May 2009 - allegations it denies.

Western diplomats in Islamabad told CBS News' Farhan Bokhari Friday that the case could complicate the close, already tense, relations between Pakistan and the United States - the largest provider of military hardware to the country's armed forces, as well as Pakistan's ties to other Western governments.

"The repercussions from this video could be much more than what appears on the surface. If proven, the contents of this video could severely damage the interests of the Pakistan army and even strengthen calls for curbs on international arms sales," said one senior Western diplomat on the condition of anonymity.

U.S. law forbids aid to foreign militaries if they are found to be committing gross violations of human rights.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson had spoken to Kayani about the videos when they surfaced and American officials were pleased to learn of the probe, embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said.

The longer clip lasts 5 minutes and 39 seconds and shows what appears to be a group of Pakistani soldiers, fully armed and in uniform, guiding the blindfolded men to a wooded area in front of a wall and lining them up next to one another. They are then shot.

A voice is heard saying "finish them one by one." A soldier then walks over to the men and shoots them again.

The second clip last 53 seconds and shows only the executions.

Kayani's statement Friday said an inquiry board would be set up headed by a major general and two to three senior officers who have experience investigating such incidents. It did not give a deadline for the investigation.

Pakistan is of such strategic importance to the war effort in Afghanistan that U.S. officials may hesitate to suspend military aid over allegations of human rights violations.

To maintain Pakistan's cooperation in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S. routinely waived laws aimed at preventing aid to a country making nuclear weapons. Pakistan tested its first nuclear bomb in 1998.

Rights activists said past army inquiries into alleged extrajudicial killings and abuses had held no one accountable.

"We hope that this will in fact be a meaningful inquiry and not a sham perpetrated to assuage international concerns," Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch said of the latest probe.

The footage has received very little, if any, media coverage in Pakistan. The army is the country's most powerful institution, and newspapers and TV stations are very careful about how they cover its activities.

Neverthless, the clips could hurt efforts by the army to win public backing for its campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Swat and other parts of the northwest close to the Afghan border. Journalists have limited access to most of the conflict zones, making it difficult to document the military's activities in full.

In October, video apparently showing Pakistani soldiers beating men detained in anti-militant operations in the northwest surfaced on Facebook and YouTube. The army said it would investigate, but has not publicly released the results of any probe.