Pro-Taliban fighters in northwest Pakistan have released 18 soldiers and a government official, officials said.

Sixteen Pakistani soldiers were captured from the South Waziristan tribal district on August 9. Videotape entitled "revenge" was later circulated showing a teenaged boy cutting off the head of one of the soldiers.

Another four security officials, including a colonel and two soldiers were seized last Friday.

Major General Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said on Geo television news on Tuesday that the hostages were released unconditionally in South Waziristan.

Ameer Mohammad Mehsud, a tribal elder involved in the negotiations, on Tuesday said the captives were headed to Wana, South Waziristan's main town, to be handed over to government officials.

Tribal region

The tribes in Pakistan's rugged Waziristan region are fiercely independent and the area has never been brought under the government's full control.

Many al-Qaeda and Taliban members took refuge in Waziristan and other remote regions on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border after US and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Violence in Pakistan, mainly in Waziristan and other parts of its tribal belt on the Afghan border, has escalated since a military assault on Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red mosque, last month and the subsequent collapse of a peace deal with tribal elders.

Despite Pakistani efforts to clear out foreign fighters and subdue their Pakistani allies, US security officials say Waziristan and other border areas are sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

PHOTO CAPTION

In this undated video grab released by Pro-Taliban militants, kidnapped Pakistani soldiers are surrounded by masked militants at an undisclosed location in Pakistan. (AFP)

Al-Jazeera