Militants behead two Pakistani women "prostitutes"

BANNU, Pakistan, Sep 7 (Reuters) Islamist militants have beheaded two women in Pakistan after accusing them of being prostitutes, police said today.

The women, identified as Maino and Malaki, both in their mid-40s, were abducted yesterday in the northwestern town of Bannu.

Their headless bodies were found on Friday dumped near a village 20 km to the south.

''A note was found near the bodies accusing them of being prostitutes and doing their business in connivance with the police,'' said senior district police officer Dar Khattak.

It was the first time militants had directly targeted women and killed them in the area, he said.

Militants in many parts of northwest Pakistan are waging a campaign to enforce what they see as strict Islamic ways.

In a separate incident, pro-Taliban militants blew up around 60 music, video and cosmetics stalls in a market in the scenic northwestern valley of Swat.

The militants had warned the stall owners to close their businesses two weeks ago, police said. The market buildings were blown up at night and no one was hurt.

Moderate Pakistanis are dismayed by the growing influence of militants pushing their austere interpretation of Islam, mostly in ethnic Pashtun trial areas of the northwest, in a process known as ''Talibanisation'' after the hardline Afghan Islamists.

REUTERS SLD PM1651