A delegation of Pakistani tribesmen has met the head of a group of al Qaeda-linked militants holding two Chinese engineers hostage, but failed to secure their release.
In talks last night, kidnap leader Abdullah Mehsud offered to free one of two Pakistanis held with engineers Wang Ende and Wang Peng since Saturday in the remote South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
But Abdullah, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who is at a separate location from the kidnappers, insisted he would not order the freeing of the Chinese until his demands were met, said the source, who did not want to be identified.
"He did not spell out the demands, but repeated a demand for safe passage for both captors and the captives to join him."
A meeting of hundreds of elders of the Mehsud tribe to which Abdullah belongs, failed to find a solution to the stand-off, said a leading elder, Qayum Sher.
"The tribal jirga (meeting) has totally failed. We have been unable to rescue the Chinese," he said. "The last effort will be that relatives of Abdullah Mehsud will approach him later tonight to urge him to release the captives," he told reporters.
Maulana Mirajuddin, leader of the tribal delegation, told reporters after meeting government officials that efforts would continue to find a peaceful resolution.
Pakistani officials have said Abdullah has demanded an end to military operations in the semi-autonomous tribal region, where hundreds have died this year in battles between troops and al Qaeda-linked militants, and the freeing of two Uzbek militants.
The kidnappers, with explosives strapped to their bodies, have been holed up in a mud house surrounded by security forces and their tribal allies in the Chagmalai area of South Waziristan, about 330 km southwest of Islamabad.
Officials said there were four or five kidnappers, at least two of whom appeared to be Arabs, and they had threatened to blow up themselves and their hostages if a rescue attempt was made.
Hundreds of foreign militants, including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs, are thought to be holed up in the tribal region, protected by Pakistani tribesmen. US officials believe Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders may also be hiding somewhere along the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mehmood Shah, head of security in the tribal region, has warned that the use of force could not be ruled out, but Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said the government wanted the crisis resolved through dialogue.
"We want them to be freed without any loss or damage," he told reporters, adding that no deadline had been set.
"Under the situation we can only put pressure on them - and that can be political pressure, pressure through the tribal elders and relatives," he said. "We don't want this to effect Pakistan-China relations, which are very cordial."
Abdullah, who was freed from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in March after the Pentagon said he was no longer a threat to the United States, threatened on Monday to order the killing of one of the Chinese unless they and the kidnappers were allowed to join him in a nearby area.
Officials said Abdullah has refused an offer of safe passage in return for freeing the engineers, who were working on a dam project in Pakistan for state-run Chinese firm Sino Hydro Corp.
China - a traditional ally of Pakistan, supplying it with arms and hundreds of millions of dollars in development finance - has urged Islamabad to do all it can to rescue the engineers and also called on it to increase security for their co-workers.