Pakistani forces have killed up to 60 Taliban militants in the military offensive in northwestern Pakistan's Buner district in the past 24 hours, a military spokesman said Friday, Xinhua reported.

The security forces have killed about 55 to 60 militants in Buner district, while two security man was killed and another eight injured in the operation, military spokesman Athar Abbas told a press conference in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Abbas also said the security forces also arrested a suicide bomber while the operation is going smoothly.

Pakistan army launched an operation in Buner district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Tuesday afternoon facing the Taliban expansion.

The Taliban in early April entered Buner district from the restive Swat valley and set up check points and patrolled the area. Taliban had failed to honor its commitment to withdrawing from Buner after talks with the NWFP government.

Abbas told a press conference earlier that some 450 to 500 militants in Buner district would be cleared of the region within a week.

The operation in Buner was following the operation in the Lower Dir district, which Abbas said had been completed.

To appease Taliban militants, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari had signed a regulation introducing Sharia, or Islamic law into Malakand division of the NWFP including the restive Swat valley, Lower Dir and Buner districts.

But critics have said that the deal has surrendered the writ of the state to terrorists, and invites the terrorists to extend their sway to other areas of the country.

The United States expressed welcome to Pakistan's military operation in Buner and Lower Dir districts.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said on Tuesday that he military operations against the Taliban in Pakistan are exactly " the appropriate response" to halt the Taliban advances.