Pakistani army ordered to avoid civilian casualties

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's army chief ordered his men on Wednesday to ensure civilian casualties are kept to a minimum, even if that meant danger for them, in an offensive against Taliban militants in the Swat valley.

The offensive, launched last week after the United States accused the government of "abdicating" to militants, has broad political and public support.

But that could change if many civilians are killed or if the hundreds of thousands displaced by the fighting suffer unduly.

"(Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani) has instructed the army to ensure minimum collateral damage, even at the expense of taking risks, by resorting to precision strikes," the army said in a statement.

Government aircraft attacked militants in the Peochar valley on Wednesday, military officials said.

Helicopter-borne soldiers swooped into the Taliban stronghold of Peochar, a side valley running northwest off the main Swat valley, on Tuesday.

There was no word on casualties in the latest fighting but a military spokesman said on Tuesday 751 militants had been killed in the offensive while 29 soldiers had been killed and 77 wounded.

Reporters have left Swat and there was no independent confirmation of that estimate of militant casualties.

The military says there have been no reports of civilian casualties as soldiers were targeting militants in hideouts in mountains and urban warfare had not started.

The region has for days been under a curfew, apart from a couple of breaks to let people flee.

Swat residents began fleeing from their homes late last month when the army attacked the Taliban who had taken over two districts near Swat in violation of a February peace pact aimed at ending violence in the former tourist valley.

As the fighting picked up, a stream of displaced turned into a flood.

"ALL-OUT SUPPORT"

A senior military official overseeing help for the internally displaced people (IDPs) said on Tuesday an estimated 800,000 civilians had fled from the latest fighting.

They were joining about 500,000 displaced by earlier fighting in the northwest, said Brigadier Aamir Raza Qureshi.

The U.N. refugee agency says it has registered more than 500,000 displaced from the latest fighting. Many people are believed not to have bothered registering.

The United Nations has warned of a protracted humanitarian crisis for a country already being propped up by a $7.6 billion International Monetary Fund loan.

While collateral damage and displacement were a natural outcome of such an offensive, Kayani said managing the displaced was as important as the military operation, the army said.

"It has been decided to provide all-out support to the government and international agencies in the management and rehabilitation of IDPs," it said.

The army, which played a major role in helping survivors of a big earthquake in 2005, was donating part of its rations to the relief effort, enough to feed about 80,000 adults a day, it said.

The United States has donated $4.9 million for basic supplies such as tents, blankets and cooking kits while Britain had donated 10 million pounds ($15.19 million), their embassies said.

Pakistani stocks ended lower as investors, reluctant to take long positions while the military fought the Taliban, sold shares to book profits after early gains.

The Karachi Stock Exchange's benchmark 100-share index ended 0.74 percent, or 54.30 points lower at 7,242.60.

The offensive was launched last week when President Asif Ali Zardari was in Washington assuring a nervous United States his government was not about to collapse and was committed to fighting militancy.

In all, about 15,000 members of the security forces are facing about 5,000 militants in the region, the military says.

(Additional reporting by Junaid Khan and Faisal Aziz; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)