Pakistan: Offensive kills 1,000 alleged militants

Islamabad: A Pakistani military offensive against Taliban fighters near the Afghan border has killed more than 1,000 suspected insurgents and "will continue till the last Taliban are flushed out," a top official said on Sunday.

Interior Minister Rahman Malik, speaking after visiting Pakistanis displaced by the battle, also wouldn't rule out extending the operation in the Swat Valley and surrounding areas to other parts of the northwest where Al Qaida and the Taliban have long thrived.

It was not possible to independently verify the figures provided by Malik because the territories bombarded over the past three weeks are too dangerous for journalists to freely roam.

An army statement on Sunday afternoon said 25 militants and a soldier had died in the previous 24 hours of the operation, and that security forces had surrounded and entered two key towns in Swat.

Malik's comments appeared designed to show resolve amid intense US pressure on Islamabad to clear Al Qaida and Taliban havens along the border region, strongholds that threaten Afghan-based US and NATO troops and nuclear-armed Pakistan itself.

"The operation is going in the right direction as we had planned," Malik said in a televised news conference from Mardan, a district hosting several relief camps for some of the nearly 1 million people turned refugees.

"People wish to go back. That is what the government also wants. I cannot give a time but we will try (to complete the operation) at the earliest."