WANA, Oct 12: Efforts to secure the release of two Chinese engineers and their Pakistani escorts were deadlocked on Tuesday as militant leader Abdullah Mehsud vowed not to negotiate unless the hostages and kidnappers were allowed to meet him.

"I swear by Almighty Allah that I will neither talk to anyone nor will I meet anyone till the security forces allow my men and the hostages to come to me," the self-styled commander told a group of tribal journalists at a secret location in the volatile South Waziristan region.

His refusal to meet a 21-member mediation committee that included his cousin, a retired army major, poured cold water on government's efforts to negotiate a way out of the present impasse.

A convoy of 30 vehicles took Mehsud tribesmen to Barawand near Jandola in the morning in an attempt to meet Commander Abdullah, the leader of the five kidnappers holding the Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver and a constable.

The Mehsud tribesmen had sent the committee to Abdullah's native village Nano, about two kilometres from Barawand, to negotiate the hostages' release with the 29-year-old former Guantanamo prisoner. But the mediators could not contact the commander.

Tribal sources said that the committee had decided to stay on in Barawand and hoped to be able to meet Abdullah later in the night somewhere in Spinkay Raghzai. Officials, however, claimed that the tribal committee had been in contact with Abdullah.

"Abdullah was not close by and told the tribal negotiators that he would meet them late at night," said one security official. "Negotiations are on and we hopeful of some positive results," the official said.

But Abdullah told the journalists in categorical terms that he would not meet anybody and insisted that for any talks to begin the government would have to first agree to let the kidnappers bring the hostages to him. "I will not talk to anyone," Abdullah asserted.

Sources said that Abdullah refused to talk to the mediators when his armed comrades accompanying the tribal negotiators tried to call him on his radio. Some Mehsud tribesmen decided to return to Tank while others stayed on to make another effort. Attempts to organize a lashkar of the Mehsud tribe to hunt down Abdullah and his local and foreign militants also failed.

In a dramatic development, meanwhile, Jalalkhel tribesmen, who were said to have cornered the kidnappers along with their hostages on Tuesday, sent a local woman with a copy of the holy Quran and a goat in accordance with a tribal tradition to persuade the kidnappers to free the hostages.

The kidnappers, witnesses said, contacted their commander over radio and sought instructions. Abdullah, the witnesses said, asked his comrades to release police constable Asmatullah as a mark of respect to the woman. But the Jalalkhel tribesmen turned down the offer saying they had been instructed by the authorities not accept the release of the Pakistanis without the Chinese hostages.

Asked what would he do if the Mehsud tribe launched a lashkar against him, Abdullah, who had once applied for commission in the Pakistan army but was denied recruitment, said he and his men were prepared for any eventuality.

"We are prepared for anything. We are prepared to sacrifice our houses and our lives. Our goal is to wage jihad and embrace Shahadat. We will fight whoever comes our way, be that the United States, the Pakistan Army or our own tribe," a defiant Abdullah said.

Meanwhile, Ali Ahmad Mehsud, a 27-year-old tribal escort, who had also been taken hostage along with three other fellow tribesmen (later freed), told Dawn that the kidnappers were treating the hostages shabbily.

He said that three of the kidnappers were Afghans and two were local Mehsuds and that they had five Kalashnikovs, one rocket and eight hand-grenades. He said that the hostages had been handcuffed and their legs chained.

"The Chinese are living on plain rice and biscuits because they have refused to take meat," Ali Mehsud said. A senior government official said that they were still waiting to hear from the mediation committee on their talks with Abdullah.

"We expect to hear from the tribal mediators," Brig Mehmood Shah, who heads the security department in the tribal areas, told Dawn by phone from Jandola. He said the government had several options, including the use of force, but was showing restraint for the safety of the hostages.

Syed Irfan Raza adds from Islamabad: The kidnappers want to take along their hostages unharmed if the authorities allow them safe passage from their hideout in South Wazirstan, an interior ministry source told Dawn on Tuesday.

The source said the kidnappers had been surrounded by a 3,000-strong contingent of security forces in the area of the Jalal Khel tribe. "Kidnappers fear that if they do not take the Chinese engineers along with them, they will be killed by the security forces.

The source said that a 25-member committee of ulema and elders of the Mehsud tribe formed to negotiate with the kidnappers had not been able to meet commander Abdullah Mehsud.

Abdullah refused to meet the committee and conveyed a message that only 10 members of the group could stay in his village for a meeting that is likely to be held on Wednesday morning.

The government, the source said, had offered the kidnappers to keep the two Pakistani hostages in custody and release the Chinese engineers. However, the kidnappers have turned down the offer, the source added.