President Barack Obama's special envoy to Pakistan praised the country's "very significant" progress in taking back key areas from Taliban militants and said the U.S. would provide more weapons for the fight as well as badly needed economic aid. Richard Holbrooke began an official visit Sunday but heavy rain forced him to postpone a trip to the northwestern Swat Valley, a U.S. Embassy official said on condition of anonymity citing embassy policy. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have begun to return to the valley after the military declared it had mostly driven the Taliban from control of the area. Holbrooke told reporters traveling with him Saturday that the Pakistani military's success in ending the Taliban's takeover of Swat was a sign of progress, along with the reported death of the militants' leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in a CIA missile strike Aug. 5. "I cannot tell whether the Taliban have been destroyed or dispersed as a result of this operation until I go myself," he said. "But one thing that is quite obvious is that security forces regained Swat and Buner from the Taliban, which itself is very significant." Holbrooke said the U.S. planned to provide more helicopters and other equipment such as night-vision goggles to the Pakistani military to aid the fight, as well as give economic help for the cash-strapped government. This is Holbrooke's second visit to Pakistan in less than a month for talks with top Pakistani leaders on a range of economic and security issues. "He (Holbrooke) is going to meet most senior level officials during his stay," US embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire told media persons. During his three-day stay in Islamabad, Holbrooke will hold talks with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani. "The talks will focus on a range of issues including rehabilitation of displaced people, the security situation in the northwest and tribal regions and presidential elections in Afghanistan," a foreign ministry official told a news agency, referring to the August 20 poll in the neighboring country. Holbrooke has said that widening the distance from Nawaz Sharif will hamper the interests of US as he is the popular leader in Pakistan and added that it is not the job of United States to tell Pakistan to launch operation in Waziristan as it is up to the Pakistani leadership to decide when and what it wants to do about it. Talking to reporters on board the plane, before landing at Islamabad Airport, Holbrooke said his meetings with Pakistani leadership would be focused on how to overcome the power shortage in the country. Holbrooke said that a task force led by Marry Bethman had been set up to find ways to help resolve the issue of electricity shortage in Pakistan...people of Pakistan are suffering because of power loadshedding and we got to help them, he added. He said Pakistan was neglected as compared to Afghanistan after 9/11 incident by the international community and whatever needed was not done in the power sector in Pakistan. And now, since we have a little breathing space as far as security situation is concerned, it is time for us to focus on other important issues like power crisis, he added. He further said that Nawaz Sharif had come out with strong statements against Taliban. Nawaz Sharif is a popular leader and his party is ruling the largest province of Punjab thats why I believe that distancing from Nawaz will not be in the interest of the US.