North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani, Chief Minister Haider Hoti and other ministers also present during the briefing.

The military had gone into action April 26 after the militants reneged on a controversial peace deal with the NWFP government and instead moved south from their Swat headquarters and occupied Buner, which is just 100 km from Islamabad.

Under the deal, the Taliban were to lay down their arms in return for Sharia laws being imposed in Swat and six other districts that make up the Malakand division.

The operations had begun in Lower Dir, the home district of radical cleric Sufi Muhammad who had brokered the peace deal. The cleric is also the father-in-law of Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, who is also known as Mullah Radio for his vitriolic anti-government broadcasts.

The cleric has been arrested but Fazlullah's whereabouts remain a mystery.

The military operations later spread to Buner and Swat and were all but wound down last month, with the focus shifting to the South Waziristan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border with Afghanistan.

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

Over three million civilians were displaced by the operations in what has been described as the largest and quickest migrations in recent times. With peace now prevailing in the area, large numbers have begin returning home.