World Jun. 30, 2008 - 04:14AM JST ( 4 )

BARA, Pakistan —

Pakistan’s government claimed Sunday that it had saved the northwestern city of Peshawar from militants, as troops pushed forward on the second day of a major offensive against the rebels.

Soldiers backed by armoured vehicles retook control of the main town in the Khyber tribal district, on the outskirts of Peshawar, and also demolished a building belonging to an Islamist insurgent group, officials said.

The government, under pressure from Western allies over its peace talks with militants, launched the operation on Saturday to counter rebels threatening Peshawar and raiding supply convoys for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“The government has been successful in the operation in Khyber which was carried out to safeguard Peshawar,” interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told a high-level meeting in Peshawar.

“Peshawar is totally safe. People should take a sound sleep, because their government is awake,” Malik said, although he did not say when the operation would finish.

Troops had found several “torture cells” and private jails, senior tribal areas official Habibullah told reporters. An illegal FM radio station used for spreading “hate speech” was also destroyed, Malik added.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani separately denied the government had launched the operation because of pressure from Washington, adding that he had told U.S. President George W Bush that talks with militants would continue.

“This is our war and it is for our own survival,” Gilani told reporters after a meeting of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party in Lahore.

“Nobody will be allowed to execute others publicly, kidnap minorities, set fire to girls’ schools and barber shops in Pakistan,” said Gilani.

In Bara, the main town in Khyber, paramilitary troops patrolled with tanks and set-up sand-bag checkpoints after retaking control of the town.

Soldiers in a village near Bara on Sunday blew up a building belonging to a Taliban-linked group, Ansar-ul-Islam, which has been accused of sending fighters into Afghanistan, a security official said.

Troops were also advancing to other areas in the district including Ansar-ul-Islam’s stronghold in the Tirah Valley, officials said.

On Saturday, troops demolished the house and headquarters of Mangal Bagh, the leader of the separate Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) group, which officials said was not linked to the Taliban.

Bagh’s group has been accused of robbing vehicles on the Khyber Pass, the main supply route for international forces in Afghanistan, although officials said his men were not responsible for cross-border attacks.

His followers had however threatened Peshawar, burning CD and barber shops deemed un-Islamic and carrying out several kidnappings, the officials said.

Bagh reportedly said he did not know why he was being targeted. “I have told LI volunteers to go home and not to resist any action,” he was quoted as saying by the News, an English-language daily.

Standing outside the rubble of Bagh’s house, his elder brother Sacha Gul, 50, said local people supported the movement. “Lashkar-e-Islam was not involved in terrorism but it was working to oust criminal elements,” he said.

But fears of further violence grew after a spokesman for Pakistan’s main Taliban movement said that all peace talks and agreements with the government had been suspended.

The announcement came a day after Pakistan’s top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, accused by authorities of masterminding Bhutto’s assassination, said he was halting two-month-old negotiations.

Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar said the group claimed responsibility for the a roadside bomb early Sunday in the troubled northwestern Swat Valley, killing two soldiers.

Four people including a pro-government tribal elder were also shot dead in Swat.

Pakistan’s government launched peace talks with rebels soon after defeating allies of U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf in February elections.

Wire reports