ISLAMABAD : Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan returned home safely Saturday after being released from his captivity by suspected Taliban militants who held him captive for 96 days, officials said.

Envoy Tariq Azizuddin was heading to the Afghan capital Kabul with his driver when he disappeared in the troubled Khyber tribal district bordering Afghanistan on February 11.

Relatives, friends and media thronged the ambassador's residence in the garrison city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad after Azizuddin, 56, was flown here by a special flight from the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The ambassador's recovery comes amid recent headway in peace talks between the Pakistani Taliban and the six-week-old coalition government led by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

The head of the interior ministry, Rehman Malik, denied any deal was struck to get the envoy back.

"We have exchanged no one, and released no one to secure his release," Malik told reporters, rejecting suggestions the ambassador was released after the government freed dozens of Taliban suspects.

"His recovery last evening (Friday) is purely a result of law enforcement efforts," Malik told reporters, standing beside the envoy who had grown a long beard and appeared exhausted.

Malik did not explain what action the security forces took.

The envoy who repeatedly waved at the media said he was thankful to God and praised the efforts of the government to secure his freedom.

"I am thankful to Allah and the government of Pakistan and very happy to be back in life with my family."

He said he was treated well in the captivity. "When they kidnapped me I was hit twice in the head with a rifle but afterwards they gave me food and a place to sleep."

The foreign ministry earlier said Azizuddin driver and bodyguard were also safe and sound with the authorities.

Taliban sources told AFP the envoy was handed over to security agency officials in the tribal area after the government released some 12 people in its custody, including members of the Afghan Taliban, earlier this week.

The release came nearly four weeks after Azizuddin appeared in a video aired by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel in which he said he was being held by the Taliban.

Azizuddin had pleaded in the video for the government and the foreign ministry "to do all they can to protect our lives and to answer all the demands of the Mujahedeen of Taliban in order to secure our release."

The day of his kidnap coincided with Pakistani security forces seizing a senior Taliban commander, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, in southwestern Baluchistan province, also bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan's new government defeated the backers of President Pervez Musharraf in elections in February and has pledged to completely overhaul the key US ally's pursuit of the "war on terror".

As part of the ongoing peace process, the authorities last month also released some 30 tribesmen held in various prisons in return for the release of 55 soldiers detained by pro-Taliban militants, according to an official.

The Pakistan government is also said to be holding the Taliban's former defence minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund who was captured last year in March from the Baluchistan capital Quetta.

He was the most senior figure from the 1996-2001 Taliban regime in Afghanistan to be captured since it fell after a US-led invasion in late-2001. The Pakistan government has not so far officially admitted his arrest.

- AFP /ls