Pakistani offensive killed up to 700 militants: top official

The Pakistani army's offensive in a conflict-scarred area in the northwest has killed up to700 Taliban militants in the past four days, the country's top civilian security official said Monday.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik also pledged that the operation would not end until the last Taliban militant in the northwestern Swat valley is driven out.

"The operation will continue until the last Talib," Malik said. "We haven't given them a chance. They are on the run. They were not expecting such an offensive."

Malik's toll, which exceeds that given by the military on Sunday by at least 200, could not be independently confirmed.

The military has relied heavily on air strikes and artillery attackssince the offensive in Swat began full-scale on Thursday. Authorities have yet to say how many civilians have been killed or wounded.

The campaign to rid Swat entirely of the Taliban, even by army accounts, will be a "long, bloody, protracted affair," said freelance journalist Graham Usher, reporting from Islamabad.

While the army is bombarding the Taliban with artillery, it can only oust the militants by sending troops into contested areas to engage in "house-to-house [and]street-to-street fighting,"Usher told CBC News.

"And if history is any guide, that will take weeks and possibly months."

Much of the fightinghasoccurred around the main town of Mingora. Most of the civilians in the city have left, with only around 10 per cent remaining, said Uhser.

Thousands of civilians streamed out of the Swat Valley Sunday after the government temporarily lifted a curfew in the region.

Burgeoning humanitarian crisis

The United Nations' refugee agency estimates as many as one million people may be displaced by fighting in the Swat.

The exodus is "aggravating what is already a very serious humanitarian crisis," said Usher.

"And at the moment, neither the international NGOs nor the government appears yet ready to absorb such an influx of refugees."

Fighting intensified in recent days after a peace deal struck last February between the regional government and hardline cleric Sufi Muhammad failed to take hold.

The deal would have allowed for Islamic courts in the valley in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. By April, it was clear the Taliban would not lay down arms after the cleric complained of government inaction in implementing Islamic, or Shariah, law.

Meanwhile, at least10 people were killed after a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint in battle-scarred Northwest Pakistan on Monday.

The bomber killed two paramilitary soldiers and eight civilians after blowing up his car, which was lined up behind a number of other vehicles at a checkpoint outside the main northwestern city of Peshawar, police spokesman Fazal Naeem told Reuters.

No one has claimed reponsibility for the attack.