By Zeeshan Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Gunmen who took up to 250 Pakistani school children hostage on Monday in a northwestern town freed them all and surrendered to tribal elders, a government spokesman said.
Violence and lawlessness has spread across Pakistan in recent months, seeping out of remote tribal regions on the Afghan border into cities and towns, raising fears about the stability of the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.
"All the children have been released and the criminals have surrendered to the jirga," said interior ministry spokesman Javel Iqbal Cheema. A jirga is a council of tribal elders. Cheema said none of the children was hurt.
Cheema said the gunmen were members of a kidnap gang but government officials and police had earlier said there were about seven Islamist militants holding the children in the school in Bannu town.
President Pervez Musharraf told a news conference in London the gunmen were "extremists".
The gunmen fled into the school in the North West Frontier Province town and took the children hostage after they had kidnapped a health department official and his driver, police said.
Police chased the gunmen and one was killed in a clash before the rest fled into the school, police said. The health official and his driver were freed.
Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz had said there were between 200 and 250 children in the school. Continued...
Officials in Pakistan have confirmed that at least 250 schoolchildren between 12 and 18 years old and several teachers were taken hostage by at least seven militants inside a high school in Domail. After negotiations, the children were released.

"There were 200 to 250 children in the school and about seven militants," said Hamid Nawaz, the Interior Minister of Pakistan.

"The criminals have surrendered to the jirga along with their weapons. No children have been hurt and all have been released," said Javel Iqbal Cheema a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. At least one officer was injured and one militant was killed in the battle.

According to reports, the militants were fighting police officers after kidnapping a "health worker" when they ran into the school for shelter. They were allegedly armed with several weapons including rocket launchers and grenades.