290 fs soliton pulses at 1.56 &mgr;m have been successfully obtained for the first time from a laser‐diode pumped erbium‐doped fiber laser with a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror. The laser was pumped by InGaAsP laser diodes and the threshold for starting the pulse oscillation was 50 mW. The passive mode‐locking continued to a pump power level as low as 10 mW. The repetition rate was uncontrollable and varied between the fundamental repetition rate of 5 MHz and 1.2–2 GHz.