**The bullet-riddled bodies of five suspected militants have been found in Pakistan’s north-western Darra Adamkhel tribal region, officials say.**The bodies were left in a mountain gorge in the Akhorwal area.
Local residents claim they were Taliban militants who went missing during a recent clash with security forces.
Troops have been conducting operations in the area to stop militants there from linking up with those in Orakzai and carrying out attacks in Peshawar.
Security officials have denied allegations that the men were taken prisoner by security forces some weeks ago.
The wounds on all the corpses are fresh, indicating that they were killed recently, a local administration official told the BBC’s Urdu service.
This is the third time that the corpses of local militants have been found in the Akhorwal area, residents say.
On two separate occasions in December 2008 corpses with bullet wounds have been found in the local graveyard - 10 bodies in total were recovered.