Disturbing video footage of beheaded bodies being paraded through the streets of southern Pakistan, in front of powerless police, has been broadcast today in Afghanistan.

Tolo TV, a private Afghan network, said that the men were killed a month ago in the tribal district of South Waziristan as a punishment for their opposition to the Taleban and al-Qaeda militias.

It would not reveal the source of the footage, whose authenticity has not been verified.

In one segment of the film, three decapitated heads are held up to cheers from a gathered crowd. Later, a number of bodies are seen being dragged behind a pick-up truck.

Crowds are heard chanting "long live Osama bin Laden" and "long live Mullah Omar", respectively the leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taleban.

The lawless, mountainous region neighbours the volatile Helmand provice of Afghanistan, where the first of 3,300 British troops arrived this week to begin setting up camp as part of a two year Nato deployment.

The footage underlines the struggle the troops face when they join a Nato peacekeeping force of 16,500 in the area to tackle

The Army is on high alert for a backlash over video footage of British troops attacking youths in Basra, Iraq. The region has also seen some of the more extreme protests in the 'on-going cartoon wars' against the pictures of Muhammad in which more than a dozen people have died.

Last week, in a show of strength, 200 Taleban militants surrounded provincial government offices in the area killing more than 20 people in a failed attempt to capture the deputy governor. The beheaded bodies of two Afghan intellingence agents were found two days ago in a desert near the border with Iran.

The Taleban, toppled from power in a US-led military campaign in late 2001, regrouped on the border of Aghanistan and Pakistan was last year blamed for the deaths of 1,700 people in the area.

Tolo TV launched in Jalalabad last August and claims to be Afghanistan's largest private broadcaster. Although its production values have been compared unfavourably to those of American public access TV, it prides itself on reflecting the diversity of the nation's contemporary culture.

• Thousands joined street rallies in Pakistan today to protest at the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. An imam in Peshawar declared a $1 million bounty on the head of offending Danish cartoonists, as Danish flags were ritually burned.

  Pakistani police put an Islamist leader under house arrest in a vain attempt to prevent more unrest after Friday prayers. Five people have been killed in Pakistan this week, and a further 10 in violent protests in Afghanistan.

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