ISLAMABAD — Pakistan hanged two convicted militants Friday in the country’s first executions in years, while warplanes and ground forces pounded insurgent hideouts in a northwest region bordering Afghanistan — part of a response to the Taliban slaughter of scores of schoolchildren.
The Taliban threatened Friday to kill more children if executions were carried out as promised.
“We can create a mourning situation at the homes of many army generals and politicians,” spokesman Mohammad Khurassani said in a statement.
A key question now is whether attacking children will undermine the sympathy many Pakistanis have for the militants. Many Pakistanis think the militants are holy warriors taking up arms against Pakistan only because the government aligned itself with the unpopular U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
Maulana Abdul Aziz, a radical cleric in Islamabad, expressed his sorrow over the schoolchildren’s deaths but also called for ending the operation against the Taliban in the tribal regions of North Waziristan and Khyber.
There were small signs that this type of support will find a tougher audience in Pakistan after militants broke into a military-run school Tuesday in Peshawar and killed 148 people — almost all of them children.
A few hundred people protested Friday outside the Lal Masjid mosque, calling for an end to support for the militants.
