(Adds government, U.S. military comment)

By Alamgir Bitani

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, April 24 (Reuters) - An al Qaeda-linked militant commander has ordered his followers to stop attacks in Pakistan after the new government began peace talks, a government official said on Thursday.

Pakistan's new government that emerged from a February general election has promised to pursue negotiations in a bid to end a tide of militant violence in which hundreds of people have been killed since the middle of last year.

But the prospect of peace pacts with militants based in lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border has raised concern as critics say deals only give militants the opportunity to re-group and intensify their attacks in Afghanistan.

The government said it was talking with elders of ethnic Pashtun tribes that inhabit the rugged northwest, not directly with militant commanders.

But with talks under way, Baitullah Mehsud, a Pashtun militant leader accused of organising the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December, has put out word to his followers to cease attacks in Pakistan.

"All members of Tehrik-e-Taliban are ordered by Baitullah Mehsud that a ban is imposed on provocative activities for the sake of peace," the group, the Movement of Taliban, said in a leaflet distributed in the South Waziristan region and nearby towns close to the Afghan border.

The group is an umbrella organisation, formed last year, of various militant groups based in Pakistan's Pashtun border lands, and led by Mehsud.

A military spokesman declined to comment on the ceasefire or the talks, but he denied a militant claim that government troops had begun pulling back from positions in South Waziristan.

The top Interior Ministry official, Rehman Malik, welcomed the ceasefire: "If he's said it, we welcome it," Malik told reporters, adding that Mehsud had denied killing Bhutto.

STRUNG UP IN PUBLIC

The militant group said in the leaflets anyone who defied the ceasefire order would be strung up in public, according to a copy obtained by Reuters.

The new coalition government, led by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, has started negotiations in a bid to break with the policies of President Pervez Musharraf, whose strategies, ranged from military action to appeasement.

Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism is deeply unpopular and many Pakistanis say it has only incited militant violence.

Authorities have struck pacts with militants before. The deals brought a temporary decline in violence in some parts of Pakistan, but were also meant to stop attacks into Afghanistan and lead to the expulsion of foreign fighters.

However, critics, including U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, said the deals let al Qaeda and the Taliban regroup and plot on the Pakistani side of the border and intensify their attacks across it into Afghanistan.

A top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, though not commenting on Pakistan's peace efforts, said on Thursday Afghanistan could see higher levels of violence this year with many Taliban attacks originating from Pakistan.

Information minister in North West Frontier Province, Iftikhar Hussain, acknowledged U.S. and other Western concerns, given the failure of previous pacts, but said he was sure this one would succeed.

"It'll take time, they must trust us," he said.

Donald Camp, U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, said the Pakistani government was aware it might have to use force.

"If the agreement doesn't work, the government understands that military action is necessary," he told reporters in Berlin.

Earlier, Mehsud's spokesman, Maulvi Omar, said the talks with the government were making progress and he welcomed the release of Sufi Mohammad, a radical cleric who sent thousands of militants to Afghanistan to fight U.S.-led forces who overthrew the Taliban in 2001. Detained in 2002, he was freed on Monday.

A security analyst was sceptical talks would bring lasting peace.

"They can bring a lull but they are unlikely to work unless the militants agree to lay down their arms," said Mahmood Shah, a former government security chief in the border areas. (Additional reporting by Karman Haider, Zeeshan Haider and Jonathon Burch in Kabul; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Alex Richardson) (For a Reuters blog on Pakistan please see: http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/)

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