DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — A Pakistani soldier was publicly stoned to death on the order of a tribal court in the country's northwestern Kurram region for having a relationship with a local woman, government officials and tribesmen said Wednesday.

Such tribal justice is a stark reminder of the difficulty in establishing a credible civilian administration in Pakistan's semi-autonomous region bordering Afghanistan, despite a series of military operations in the area and Western nations pouring in millions of dollars to help build infrastructure.

---

Punjab native Anwar Din, 27, was posted last year to the Parachinar area of Kurram agency where he met Intizar Bibi, 19, while manning a checkpost near her home.

The two embarked on a romantic relationship, tribal sources said, and he tried to elope with her when he was later posted to the disputed Kashmir region. It was not immediately clear what evidence there was, if any, of a romance.

"The girl left her home on Monday and met Anwar Din when villagers saw them," said Munir Hussain, the head of the local jirga, or tribal court, that sentenced Din to death. "We took the girl into custody and took the boy to the local graveyard where he was stoned to death and buried."

Din was killed on Monday, he added. A government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the jirga had ruled the woman must be shot to death. It was not immediately clear if this had already taken place.

The army was not immediately available for comment.

Kurram, the only part of Pakistan's largely lawless border region that has a significant Shiite population, is racked by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite tribes. Anti-Shiite ideology from the Taliban and al Qaeda has meant years of bloody fighting.

Bibi is Shiite while Din was Sunni, Hussain added.

Tribal justice
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas have never been fully integrated into Pakistan's administrative, economic or judicial system.

Instead, families and tribes often take justice into their own hands, presiding over "jirgas" or "panchayats," gatherings of elders who hand down punishments including rape, killing and the bartering of women to settle scores and restore honor.

In such tribal justice, women often fare far worse than men.

Hussain said that the jirga had also requested that another Pakistani soldier, Saif Ullah, be handed over for helping the couple meet and coordinate the planned elopement.

"The army is here for our security but if they engage in such activities we will not let them stay here," Hussain said. "This is an insult to tribal customs. We will revolt against this."

Related: 

A rare glimpse inside Pakistan's ground zero for terrorists

Pakistan reeling from anti-Christian attack

An A to Z guide to the Islamic Republic of 'Banistan'

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

BAMAKO, Mali -- An al-Qaida-linked Islamist militant group in control of northern Mali stoned to death a couple accused of engaging in extramarital affairs, the group's spokesman said.

The couple were publicly executed in the remote town of Aguelhok, near the vast West African nation's northern border with Algeria, on Sunday, a spokesman for the Ansar Dine group told Reuters.

---

"These two people were married and had extra-conjugal relations. Our men on the ground in Aguelhok applied shariah (Islamic law)," said Sanda Ould Bounama, reached by telephone on Monday.

"They both died right away and even asked for this application. We don't have to answer to anyone over the application of shariah," he said.

Al-Qaida-linked fighters destroy 'end of the world' gate in Timbuktu

A local government official told the AFP news agency that he was on the scene. "The Islamists took the unmarried couple to the center of Aguelhok. The couple was placed in two holes and the Islamists stoned them to death," he said.

"The woman fainted after the first few blows," he said. The man shouted out once and then was silent, he added.

Coup topples 'incompetent regime': Soldiers seize power in Mali

Most people living in northern Mali have long practiced Islam, but frustrations with the strict form of shariah being imposed by Islamists have sparked several protests in recent months.

Ansar Dine and well-armed allies, including al-Qaida splinter group MUJWA, have hijacked a separatist uprising by local Tuareg rebels and now control two-thirds of Mali's desert north, territory that includes the regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.

NYT: African Afghanistan? Thousands flee Mali as jihadists tighten their grip

Western and African governments are struggling to muster a response to the crisis as politicians in the capital Bamako continue to squabble over how the country should be governed after a March coup removed the country's president.

NBCNews.com staff contributed to this report from Reuters.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Military drafted in to fill empty seats at London Olympics
• Romney would 'respect' Israel strike on Iran, aide says
• Rome's leaning Colosseum has experts worried
• 2 US climbers found dead on Peruvian peak
• Olympic crasher marched at Opening Ceremony
• Elephants slaughtered, orphan found in latest Africa poaching

News on NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

BAGHDAD -- At least 14 youths have been stoned to death in Baghdad in the past three weeks in what appears to be a campaign by Shiite militants against youths wearing Western-style "emo" clothes and haircuts, security and hospital sources say.

Militants in Shiite neighborhoods where the stonings have taken place circulated lists on Saturday naming more youths targeted to be killed if they do not change the way they dress.

The killings have taken place since Iraq's interior ministry drew attention to the "emo" subculture last month, labeling it "Satanism" and ordering a community police force to stamp it out.

---

"Emo" is a genre of punk rock music that originated in the United States in the 1980s. Fans are known for their distinctive dress, often including tight jeans, T-shirts with logos and distinctive long or spiky haircuts.

At least 14 bodies of youths have been brought to three hospitals in eastern Baghdad bearing signs of having been beaten to death with rocks or bricks, security and hospital sources told Reuters under condition they not be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Nine bodies were brought to hospitals in Sadr City, a vast, poor Shiite neighborhood, three were brought to East Baghdad's main al-Kindi hospital and two were brought to the central morgue, medical sources said.

Six other young people, including two girls, were wounded in beatings intended as warnings, the security sources said.

"Last week I signed the death certificates of three of those young people, and the reason for death I wrote in my own hand was severe skull fractures," a doctor at al-Kindi hospital told Reuters. "A very powerful blow to the head caused these fractures which totally smashed the skull of the victim."

Other sources put the"emo" death toll much higher. Hana al-Bayaty of Brussels Tribunal, a nongovernmental organization dealing with Iraqi issues, said the current figure ranges “between 90 and 100,” Arabic-language newspaper Al Arabiya reported on its website.

A leaflet distributed in the Shiite Bayaa district of east Baghdad seen by Reuters on Saturday had 24 names of youths targeted for killing.

"We strongly warn you, to all the obscene males and females, if you will not leave this filthy work within four days the punishment of God will descend upon you at the hand of the Mujahideen," the leaflet said.

Another leaflet in Sadr City bore 20 names. "We are the Brigades of Anger. We warn you, if you do not get back to sanity and the right path, you will be killed," it said.

In a statement last month the interior ministry said it was monitoring "the 'emo' phenomenon, or Satanism" which it said was spreading through schools, particularly among teenage girls.

"They wear tight clothes that bear paintings of skulls, they use school implements with skulls and wear rings in their noses and tongues as well as other weird appearances," it said.

After reports of the stonings circulated on Iraqi media, the interior ministry said this week that no murders on its files could be blamed on the reaction to "emo".

"Many media have reported fabricated news reports about the so-called 'emo' phenomenon -- stories about tens of young people killed in various ways, including stoning," the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

"No murder case has been recorded with the interior ministry on so-called 'emo' grounds. All cases of murder recorded were for revenge, social and common criminal reasons."

Clerics denounce killings
Iraq's leading Shiite clerics have condemned the stonings.

Abdul-Raheem al-Rikabi, Baghdad representative for Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, called the killings "terrorist attacks."

"Such a phenonomenon which has spread among young people should be tackled through dialogue and peaceful means and not through physical liquidation," Rikabi told Reuters.

In a response to questions on his website on Saturday, Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric whose followers dominate Sadr City, described "emo" youths as "crazy and fools," but said they should be dealt with only through the law.

"They are a plague on Muslim society, and those responsible should eliminate them through legal means," he said.

Abu Ali al-Rubaie, a leading Sadr aide in Sadr City, said the cleric's followers had nothing to do with the killings.

"In this issue and in all such problems we always use peaceful and educational methods to correct any wrongdoings. We are not connected in any way to those groups allegedly responsibility for killing those young people."

Another revered Iraqi cleric, Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yakoubi, said in a statement on Friday that the killings of “emo” teens in the country was exaggerated and aimed at tarnishing the image of those who are religious and have problems with the current government. “Media outlets have published some news on the killing of 'Emo' teenagers in Baghdad and other provinces but did not confirm the authenticity or the correctness of neither the news nor the numbers mentioned,” he said, according to Al Arabiya.

In the years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, most of Baghdad's neighborhoods were under the firm grip of Sunni and Shiite religious militias which enforced strict dress codes.

Today, the militias have largely disappeared, Baghdad is far more peaceful and many youths experiment with Western styles, although much of Iraqi society remains conservative.

On the streets of Baghdad, people said they had heard of the killings through the media. Many expressed disapproval of the "emo" style, but said murder was no way to respond.

"I saw them a couple weeks ago ... a bunch of girls, high-school aged, walking together, dressed in black. They had long black eye makeup and bracelets with skulls and chains on their handbags with skulls," said Abdullah, 31.

"If they are close friends who have something in common, that's all right. If other things we hear about them are true, like sucking each other's blood or worshipping the devil, that is not accepted in our society. But I think this is just a trend to imitate the West."

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this story.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• 'Escalation': Worst Gaza flare-up in months kills 14, Palestinians say
• Slimy but tasty seaweed returns to Japan
  Dominique Strauss-Kahn flees student protesters
• As quick as a tsunami: Chinese pre-fab homes

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world