A senior Pakistani government official has urged residents to flee the Swat valley in the northwest where a peace deal with Taliban appears to be crumbling amid intense fighting.
Khushal Khan also said on Tuesday that the provincial government in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) was pleading for help to house tens of thousands refugees fleeing fighting between the government and the Taliban in Buner.
He said people should flee for their own safety.
He wouldn't say whether an army offensive - which would spell the end of the peace pact - was imminent.
The call came as the Taliban warned the peace deal agreed by the government and Taliban fighters was close to collapse.
Muslim Khan, the Pakistani Taliban's spokesman in neighboring Swat, accused the government and the army of being stooges for the US.
"They keep violating every agreement and if this goes on, definitely there will be no deal, no ceasefire," Muslim Khan, the Pakistani Taliban's spokesman in neighboring Swat, said.
"This is not our army, this is not our government. They're worse enemies of Muslims than the Americans. They're US stooges and now it's clear that either we'll be martyred or we'll march forward."
Fighting continued in Buner on Tuesday with a suicide bombing in Peshawar, the northwest's provincial capital, killing at least five people, including a child, at a police checkpoint.
Renewed fighting has virtually derailed the government's February deal with the Taliban that allows them to enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, across Malakand division in exchange for peace.
Sohail Rahman, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said it was a desperate situation.
"The social development minister spokes to us [journalists] a little while ago and she was appealing to aid agencies to try and help those people who were leaving the Swat area and Buner with accommodation," Rahman reported.
"People are leaving with literally clothes on their backs and what few possessions they can carry heading to areas where a makeshift camp has been established."
Sharia deal
The February pact has alarmed US officials who worry that Swat will turn into a haven for fighters near Afghanistan, where US and Nato troops are also battling the Taliban.
US officials have also accused the Pakistani government of "abdicating" to the Taliban.
Asif Ali Zadari, Pakistan's president, will be meeting Barack Obama, his US counterpart, in Washington on Wednesday and he is expected to ask him for more support in the fight against the Taliban.
But also on the agenda will be Washington's concern about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, and America's fear that it is losing the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
On Saturday, the government in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) announced the formation of an Islamic appeal court, or "Dar-ul-Qaza", saying that the court's establishment would put the onus on the fighters to lay down their weapons.
The creation of the court was among the demands made by Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi, a group led by Sufi Muhammad, an influential local religious leader who mediated the deal between the government and the Taliban.
PHOTO CAPTION
A Pakistani soldier patrols on the streets of Hayatabad in Pakistan's troubled north west.
Agencies