PESHAWAR - Taliban militants on Thursday released to tribal elders all remaining staff and students kidnapped in northwest Pakistan three days ago, security and government officials said.

"Taliban have handed over all kidnapped children to a tribal jirga (council of elders)," Kamran Zeb, a government official in the area, told AFP.

"Our information is that all have been released, including two staff and 46 students," he added.

Security officials said that around 50 students and teachers from an army-run boarding school in the semi-autonomous North Waziristan tribal area, on the border with Afghanistan, were handed over to tribal elders on Thursday.

They are expected to be presented to journalists in Bannu, a town in the neighbouring North West Frontier Province which falls under direct government control in the mid-afternoon. -AFP