By David Morgan

WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - Pakistan's new civilian government has had little success so far implementing a stated policy of persuading tribal leaders to end militant activity in its lawless tribal regions, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Richard Boucher, U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, said the so-called peace deals have been sought instead with militant leaders in the volatile Waziristan and Swat regions.

The aim of securing agreements with tribal leaders is key to a newly announced Pakistan strategy of eliminating militancy in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Province.

The strategy, announced on Wednesday in Islamabad, makes tribal leaders responsible for expelling foreign fighters from their areas and stopping militants including the Taliban from crossing into Afghanistan to carry out attacks.

"Politicians say: 'We have a policy of negotiating with the tribes, not the militants.' And yet what we've seen is negotiations with Sufi Mohammad in Swat and Baitullah Mehsud in Waziristan," Boucher said at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Certainly the approach of saying, 'We will work with the tribes to kick out the militants,' is a better approach than going directly to negotiate with the militants. That seems to be the approach they are adopting, not one that they have implemented successfully yet," Boucher said.

But he welcomed Islamabad's new statement on counterterrorism as a development that could address the disparity between goals and actual results.

"We're trying to reconcile that and I think to some extent their statement today will do that," he said.

Pakistan's tribal areas are of vital importance to the United States because U.S. officials believe the region harbors a reconstituted al Qaeda capable of striking U.S. soil as well as bases for Taliban militants who carry out attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.

Militant attacks have also killed hundreds of people inside Pakistan including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose assassination in December led to civilian elections this year that marginalized the power of President Pervez Musharraf, the country's former military chief.

U.S. hopes of ending the al Qaeda and militant threat in the tribal areas depends largely on efforts to provide counterinsurgency training and equipment to Pakistani forces including an 85,000-strong paramilitary Frontier Corps, described by U.S. officials as ill-equipped and ill-trained.

But Mitchell Shivers, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, told the Senate panel that success was not guaranteed.

"I'm not sure if our current plans in place will absolutely ensure success with the goals that we have in FATA and the North West Frontier Province," he said.

He described the Pakistani military and Frontier Corps as "the best forces actually to engage the enemies there. It would be extremely difficult to introduce for any length of time U.S. forces into that area."

U.S. support for Pakistan came under fire this week in a congressional report that said the Bush administration had paid Islamabad more than $2 billion for counterterrorism efforts without adequate proof that the funds had used as intended.

(Editing by David Wiessler)

(david.morgan@reuters.com; +1 202 898 8326; Reuters Messaging: david.morgan.reuters.com@reuters.net))

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