Pakistanis flee offensive

By Junaid Khan and Paul Eckert

KOTA, Pakistan/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan has been roused to fight the "existential threat" of a growing Islamist insurgency, the top U.S. commander for the Afghan-Pakistan war theatre said on Sunday, as Islamabad intensified an offensive against Taliban militants.

Army General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said Pakistan's fierce campaign against the Taliban in the Swat valley was a sign its political leaders, people and military were united against the Islamist fighters.

"The actions of the Pakistani Taliban ... seem to have galvanized all of Pakistan," he told the "Fox News Sunday" program.

"Certainly the next few weeks will be very important in this effort to roll back, if you will, this existential threat -- a true threat to Pakistan's very existence that has been posed by the Pakistani Taliban."

Nuclear-armed Pakistan hopes to stop a Taliban insurgency with its offensive in Swat, a former tourist enclave about 130 km (80 miles) from Islamabad, after U.S. criticism that the government was failing to act against the militants.

Pakistan's military ordered people out of parts of the valley on Sunday, temporarily relaxing a curfew to allow civilians to flee fighting.

Up to 200 militants had been killed in Swat and the neighbouring Shangla district in the past 24 hours, the military said. The figure could not be independently confirmed.

About 200,000 people have left Swat in recent days and, in all, about 500,000 are expected to flee. They join 555,000 people displaced earlier from Swat and other areas because of fighting since August.