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KARACHI, Nov 27 (Reuters) - A regional party withdrew its support on Wednesday for the new pro-military Pakistani government, jeopardising the prime minister's survival in office less than a week after he was sworn in.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), powerful in southern cities, said it would sit in opposition in national and provincial assemblies after Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali's government failed to back it in a row with a rival faction over control of some parts of Karachi.

MQM and the breakaway faction, Mohajir Qaumi Movement, have been at loggerheads for years over what MQM calls "no-go-areas" in sprawling Karachi where the rival faction holds sway.

"The Jamali government has failed to honour promises it had made to us. Therefore we have decided to sit on opposition benches," Farooq Sattar, a leader of MQM, told a news conference.

MQM won 16 seats in the National Assembly in last month's general election and threw its weight behind Jamali's bid to become the country's first prime minister in three years.

MQM's support was crucial for Jamali, who became prime minister with a razor-thin majority last week.

He must survive a mandatory confidence vote within two months to survive in power. Jamali is from the pro-military Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA), which won the most seats in the election but fell well short of a majority.

He had to muster support from many smaller parties and from defectors from one of the main rival parties to win the race for the premiership.

"We will abstain from the voting. It is for them to think how to save their government," Nasreen Jalil, another MQM leader, told Reuters.

Political observers say MQM's announcement could be a ploy to extract more concessions from Jamali's fragile government as the PML-QA is seeking to forge a coalition government in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.

Pakistani authorities previously blamed the MQM for some of the bloodletting in Karachi in the 1990s when thousands of people were killed in ethnic and political violence, prompting a major military crackdown against the party.

MQM denies charges of violence.

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