President Zardari has demanded Pakistan be given “ownership” of American drones hunting jihadists on its soil as fighting continued to rage between the Taleban and government forces in the Swat Valley.

Speaking after a meeting with Gordon Brown in London, Mr Zardari said he was “negotiating terms” giving Pakistan control over the drones he has denounced as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

Mr Zardari was responding to earlier reports from Washington that the Pentagon had recently begun joint military drone operations with Islamabad but was still refusing to allow Pakistan any say in the CIA’s covert programme of attacking senior al-Qaeda figures.

The new US military drones are reportedly intended for attacking insurgents crossing over into Afghanistan, and, if Islamabad wishes, the domestic insurgents threatening the Pakistani state - including those battling the government in the Swat Valley.

US officials told the Los Angeles Times, however, that Islamabad was reluctant to use the drones on its own people and had yet to ask for their use in Swat. Islamabad blamed civilian casualties from the attacks for bolstering support for the domestic Taleban.

Tens of thousands of civilians continued to pour out of Swat today to escape the fighting. Some remain trapped, either by Taleban gunmen who are reportedly refusing to allow them to leave, or by government cordons set up to encircle the militants.

The Army said five headless bodies had been found near Mingora, Swat’s main population centre. Residents say the Taleban has decapitated opponents and dumped their bodies in the town.

The UN refugee agency has now registered more than 670,000 displaced from the latest fighting, of whom about 80,000 in camps. The rest have taken refuge in private homes.

Médecins sans Frontières, the last international aid organisation in Swat until two weeks ago, when fighting forced them out, said they were gravely worried about the wounded still trapped in the valley.

Reports say that several banned jihadi-linked charity groups have stepped into the breach after being allowed in by the Taleban. MSF operated the only government-authorised ambulance service until its withdrawal; now independent reports say Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the banned charity wing of the Islamist group Lashkar-e-Toiba, have taken over the task of ferrying patients to safety.

Mr Brown pledged £1 million in immediate aid for the refugees fleeing the fighting and reiterated the commitment of £12 million in British aid towards development in the poor tribal areas, including education for girls.

However, some aid officials have warned that bilateral aid from Western governments is becoming counter-productive among a population deeply suspicious of its political motives.

Britain has recently doubled development aid to Pakistan and refocused it on the border areas as part of a new “AfPak” policy to target instability across both countries.

Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistani army chief, ordered his troops not to provoke the ire of the people by “resorting to precision strikes” to avoid civilian casualties.

The Army said it had no information to corroborate accounts from refugees of dozens of people killed and injured in the fighting, which has mainly involved airstrikes and artillery barrages on militant targets.

Pakistani commandos secured their first footholds in the Swat Valley today, a day after being airlifted into the remote Piochar region - the rear base of the Swat Taleban leader, Maulana Fazalullah, who made February’s deal with parliament for Sharia law in the valley.

Muslim Khan, a Taleban spokesman, issued a threat to Members of Parliament from Swat, saying their families would be hunted down and their property destroyed unless they resigned. "Morale is high. All areas are still under our control,” he said.

The fighting appeared to have little impact on Taleban activity elsewhere in Pakistan’s northwest. Police said dozens of assailants stormed a transport depot close to the Khyber Pass handling supplies for Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, and torched eight trucks before escaping.

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