Taliban announced one-month conditional cease fire in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan area on Sunday, local private Geo TV reported.

Taliban's spokesperson Abdullah Farhaad said that the cease-fire was announced on condition of safe movement of the members of loyal Jirga, the report said.

Other conditions included the removal of new check posts from the area, replacement security forces' officials by Khasadar force from other check posts and release of detained tribesmen in one month period, he added.

Governor of North West Frontier Province Ali Mohd. Jan said that positive steps should be responded positively and the proposed conditions would be put forward before the loyal Jirga.

In another development, two coalition soldiers were killed during combat in southern Afghanistan that also left about 45 militants dead, military officials said Sunday, as President Hamid Karzai called for more coordination between coalition and tribal leaders during counterterrorism operations.

The coalition estimates about 250 insurgents have been killed since Operation Mountain Thrust _ the biggest military operation since the push to topple the Taliban _ got underway earlier this month to stop a wave of suicide attacks and ambushes in southern Afghanistan.

In Kabul, Karzai emphasized to key Western officials the need for international troops to work more closely with tribal leaders and community elders during military operations, his office said Sunday.

Karzai again warned that maximum caution needs to be taken to avoid civilian casualties during military operations.

Also on Sunday, five Afghan aid workers, including three employed by a Swedish aid agency, were abducted in eastern Afghanistan, said a police official.

The five - two doctors and an employee of the aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and two local government workers - were kidnapped on Thursday while driving in the province of Nuristan, said Ghalamullah Nuristani, the provincial deputy police chief.

Abdallah Fahim, a spokesman for the Public Health Ministry in Kabul, said that the five were still alive, according to village elders in contact with the kidnappers, and that police and Afghan troops were looking for them.

"The elders and people of the area are cooperating," Nuristani said. "They will help us win their freedom very soon."

He did not give any details about who was suspected to have kidnapped the aid workers.

Shah Mahmoud, the acting director of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, said he had no comment on the kidnappings.

The five had traveled to inaugurate a health clinic in a remote village and on the return trip were kidnapped in an area between two mountains, Nuristani said.

The driver, who was freed by the kidnappers, contacted police, Nuristani said. The driver is in custody for questioning but is not a suspect, he said.

"We request from the kidnappers to release them," Fahim said. "They are not political or military people."

(Xinhua News Agency, Chinadaily.com via agencies June 26, 2006)

?