Under the deal, the militants were to lay down their arms in return for the imposition of Sharia laws in the Malakand division. Instead, they moved south from their Swat headquarters and occupied Buner district that is just 100 km from Islamabad.

The operations had begun in Lower Dir, the home district of radical cleric Sufi Mohammad, who had brokered the peace deal and who is the father-in-law of Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah. The operations, which have now all but concluded, later spread to Buner and Swat.

Some three million civilians were displaced by the fighting. Large numbers of them have now begun to return home.

The military says over 1,500 Taliban were killed in the fighting.