Pakistan's army chief said Saturday his forces had "broken the back" of Islamist militants after the United States criticised the country's efforts to quell Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked rebels.

"The terrorists' backbone has been broken and God willing we will soon prevail," General Ashfaq Kayani said in a speech at a passing-out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy in northwestern garrison town of Abbottabad.

The White House this month criticised Pakistan's efforts to defeat the Taliban in its border regions, in a report immediately rejected by Islamabad.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, subsequently accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of having ties with the Afghan Taliban in the northwestern tribal belt.

"Let me assure you that we in Pakistan's army are fully aware of the internal and external threat to our country," Kayani said Saturday.

"In the war against terrorism our officers and soldiers have made great sacrifices and have achieved tremendous success.

"The people of Pakistan value their freedom and independence more than anything else, and consider no sacrifice too great to preserve it," he said.

A military statement released Thursday, after Mullen's comments, said Kayani had "strongly rejected negative propaganda on Pakistan not doing enough and (the) Pakistan army's lack of clarity on the way forward".

In an interview with private TV channel Geo, Mullen, the highest-ranking officer in the US armed forces, had said: "ISI has a long standing relationship with the Haqqani network — that does not mean everybody in ISI but it is there."

The Haqqani network is an Al-Qaeda-allied organisation run by Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani and based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal district.

The group has been blamed for some of the deadliest anti-US attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide attack at a US base in Khost in 2009 that killed seven CIA operatives.

earlier related report

NATO supply truck driver shot dead in Pakistan
Quetta, Pakistan (AFP) April 22, 2011 –

Gunmen killed a NATO supply truck driver on Friday after opening fire on a convoy heading to Afghanistan from Pakistan's troubled southwest, officials said.

An unknown number of attackers on motorcycles signalled for the convoy to stop and opened fire after drivers ignored them, before the gunmen fled the scene, local official Mohammad Azam told AFP.

The incident took place in Baghbana town of Khuzdar district, 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of Quetta, the main city of Baluchistan province, Azam said.

"A driver of one NATO supply truck was killed, all other drivers and their helpers remain safe," he said by telephone.

NATO supply trucks and oil tankers are targets of frequent attacks blamed on insurgents attempting to disrupt supplies for more than 130,000 international troops fighting in Afghanistan.

Most supplies and equipment required by coalition troops in Afghanistan are shipped through neighbouring Pakistan, although US troops increasingly use alternative routes through Central Asia.

Baluchistan — which also borders Iran — is torn by Islamist militancy, sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiite Muslims, and an insurgency by rebels seeking political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.

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