PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Taliban spokesman denied Tuesday that Pakistan has won a series of battlefield victories in its offensive in tribal South Waziristan, saying the militants are drawing government soldiers into a trap.

"We are prepared for a long war," Azam Tariq told an Associated Press reporter by telephone. "The areas we are withdrawing from, and the ones the army is claiming to have won, are being vacated by us as part of a strategy. The strategy is to let the army get in a trap, and then fight a long war."