LONDON Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said public opinion had turned decisively against extremists over the past few months, paving the way for the government's military successes.
'Today, public opinion has converted to such an extent that the local tribes have set up lashkars [militias] to support army operations,' Qureshi told the Guardian in an interview in London on Wednesday.
He said Pakistan has 'turned the tide' in its battle with Islamist militants and it has al Qaeda 'on the run' after a series of government offensives.
The newspaper said Qureshi's assertion was given weight by an opinion poll released recently showing that 80 per cent of Pakistanis believe the Taliban and other Islamist extremists pose a 'critical threat' to the country. A previous poll in September 2007 found that only 34 per cent viewed the Taliban as a threat.
Qureshi said 95 per cent of the Swat and Malakand areas, which were seized by extremists, had been cleared of Islamist militias since a government offensive began in May.
He said the army was pressing deep into the South Waziristan tribal territory, striking at the base of one of the most powerful Pakistani warlords, Baitullah Mehsud.
Qureshi said he was not surprised by the announcement of scrapping of truce by the Taliban in North Waziristan. 'As we've put on the pressure, they have realigned,' he said. 'We are taking them all on. We are not picking between a bad and a good terrorist. A terrorist is a terrorist.'
'The army has eliminated a lot of the second and third tier leadership, and that has hit their effectiveness and their capacity to regroup and counterattack is diminishing, even if it is gradually.'
Qureshi said government offensives were robbing the al Qaeda leadership of support.
'For the first time they are on the run,' the foreign minister said. 'We know that because we pick up on their chatter.'
He said the army offensive had succeeded in the Pashtun tribal areas where many had failed under the rule of General Pervez Musharraf because it had popular support under a democratically elected government.
'I think we've turned the tide and democracy has played a significant role,' Qureshi said.
He argued that people in the Swat valley realised what Taliban rule was costing them in terms of lost livelihoods and missed education opportunities for their daughters.
The Pakistani media had lost both its fear and its illusions about extremists, who had once been portrayed as 'Robin Hood' figures, he said.
He claimed moderate clerics had been so alienated by the Taliban's excesses during its occupation of Swat that they had issued fatwas against suicide bombing.
Qureshi said the April emergence of a video showing a 17-year-old girl being flogged by the Taliban for being seen with a man who was not her husband had a pivotal effect on public opinion.
'[The video] put people into shock,' he said. 'People asked is this the Pakistan we want? And their answer was no.'
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