Pakistan's claim that over 700 militants have been killed in the offensive against Taliban in the country's troubled northwest is being questioned by US military and intelligence officials, who termed it as "wildly exaggerated".

Pakistani military and civil officials, including Interior Minister Rehman Malik, have said that more than 700 militants have been killed since security forces launched operations against militants in various parts of the restive Malakand area, where the Taliban's influence increased in the wake of a peace deal between them and authorities in Swat.

However, US military and intelligence officials have expressed scepticism about Pakistani claims of high Taliban casualties, according to 'The Long War Journal', a highly regarded website that tracks the activities of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terror groups.

The Pakistani military's daily reports of hundreds of Taliban fighters killed in the districts of Buner, Dir, Shangla and Swat are "wildly exaggerated", a senior US intelligence official closely watching the operations in Pakistan was quoted as saying.

"Malik's numbers are even more fantastic than those given by the Pakistani military... Clearly (the Pakistani security establishment) want us to believe they're having fantastic success against the Taliban," a US intelligence official said.

A US military intelligence official told the website that the "numbers issued by the (Pakistani) military are wildly exaggerated."

The official noted that Pakistan military is over-relying on air and artillery strikes instead of engaging the Taliban. "This is like a bad movie we've all seen before. Pakistani military levels large areas, claims success, and thinks we'll be conned into believing it if they pump up the Taliban body counts," the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

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