Mullah Fazlullah, the notorious Taliban leader in Pakistan's Swat Valley, was seriously wounded in a military attack, Pakistan's interior minister told the BBC.

The British network reported Minister Rahman Malik's comment could not be independently verified.

Swat Valley in Pakistan's northwest has been the scene of a military campaign against the Taliban for two months.

The military -- which is winding down its operation in the Swat area, a stronghold of Mullah Fazlullah -- claims to have inflicted heavy casualties on the militants.

While talking to the BBC, Malik also did not attach importance to an announcement Tuesday by a Taliban group in North Waziristan led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur that it has scrapped a peace deal with the government.

Malik, asserting the militants are allied with one another, said there was nothing new in the announcement.

The military now plans to turn its attention to South Waziristan to hunt down Pakistan's Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, but the BBC said the assault had yet to begin.

The BBC, quoting officials, also reported gunmen Wednesday shot and killed Malik Gali Khan, a tribal leader loyal to the Pakistani government, in the Khyber tribal region. Two of his guards also were shot.

Khan was traveling in the Jamrud area when the gunmen attacked him. Local tribesmen, irate over his death, shut down markets and closed the Pakistan-Afghanistan highway through Torkham, the BBC said.

Khan was described as a government supporter in a region which provides the key route to transport supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan.