But it remains unclear whether the country's powerful military has decided to engage militants more forcefully in other areas.
General Petraeus predicts more violence as the number of American troops increases and they begin to engage militants more actively.
The Pakistani military official said his forces had not fired the rockets, and that "Pakistani troops only respond and engage militants from where they are attacked or fired upon".
A civilian close to the military said the soldiers were in Konduga, a town 20 miles (30km) from Bama, but were refusing to advance to engage militants in the city.
Gen. David McKiernan, the top American commander in Afghanistan, says he is working on a plan to engage militants in local councils provided they reject the Taliban and accept the basic civil rights and political freedoms in the Afghan Constitution.
In Iraq, the plan calls for U.S. forces to engage militants with deadly force but protect civilians.
He sought to engage militants in dialogue, found himself exposed to the harsh realities and language of ghetto areas, and had an unusual encounter with hippies and The Diggers in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.
Military officials are now talking increasingly of the campaign to deny the militants areas in which to operate, rather than of finding and engaging militant forces.
On Saturday night, a militant source said soldiers in 14 boats with air cover had engaged the militants in a three-hour firefight.
Zardari said he would raise with Ambassador Holbrooke Pakistan's commitment to fighting insurgency, which he expected to get much worse when the GOP really engaged the militants.
