Pakistan may have superior military might, but to win the war against Taliban guerrillas they must avoid collateral damage and rebuild angry lives shattered by the offensive, analysts say.Militants are believed to have a strong presence in more than half North West Frontier Province, despite military operations over the past two years, on top of six years of battles in the surrounding semi-autonomous tribal belt.

The army has lost more than 2,000 soldiers since 2002 and has claimed to have killed thousands of rebels, yet the Taliban have continued to advance.

It has been a deadly fight -- difficult militarily to fight guerrillas on remote, rugged mountainous terrain and difficult politically to wage battle against fellow Muslims, particularly if civilian casualties soar.
Pakistan has a conventional standing army of around 700,000 troops and traditionally considers India its main threat. The military press wing says 100,000 are deployed on the western front in the border areas with Afghanistan.

It remained unclear whether large numbers of troops based in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, on the Indian border, would be diverted to what President Asif Ali Zardari has called a fight until a return to "normalcy".