Militants flee after releasing child hostages

HEAVILY armed Islamic militants took more than 300 children hostage at a school in north-west Pakistan yesterday but freed them after tense negotiations with tribal elders, officials said.

Seven rebels equipped with rocket launchers and dynamite holed up at the primary school in the remote village of Domail after a failed attempt to abduct a local official that left one of their men dead, they said.

The insurgents threatened to blow up the children if they were not given safe passage, but eventually released them and fled towards Pakistan’s troubled tribal area bordering Afghanistan, tribal negotiators said.