The announcement follows a deal struck last week between a radical cleric and authorities that brings Sharia law in return for an end to the insurgency.

The Taleban have been assessing that deal and Tuesday’s move followed a meeting under the group’s leader in the region, Maulana Fazlullah.

The scenic valley of Swat has long been blighted by militant violence.

‘Goodwill gesture’

“Today the shura (consultative council) met under Maulana Fazlullah and decided to hold a ceasefire for an indefinite period,” Taleban spokesman in the region Muslim Khan was quoted by the news agency AFP as saying.

“We are releasing all prisoners unconditionally. Today we released four paramilitary soldiers and we will release all security personnel in our custody as a goodwill gesture,” he said.

A previous 10-day truce announced by the militants was set to expire on Wednesday.

The cleric, Sufi Mohammad, who is also Maulana Fazlullah’s father-in-law, has been mediating between the government and the militants.

On Monday, he urged the militants to end the patrolling of streets and to allow the government to set up the Islamic courts they have been fighting for.

Swat has been the scene of bloody clashes between militants and government forces since November 2007. Officials say more than 1,200 civilians have been killed in fighting.

The Taleban have also destroyed nearly 200 schools, most of them for girls, during a sustained campaign against secular education in Swat.

An earlier peace agreement broke down in mid-2008.

The BBC’s Barbara Plett in Islamabad says there is concern that this peace deal will also not last, with some analysts believing the Taleban want to control territory, not just amend the legal system.

Earlier this month, the North West Frontier Province government signed an agreement with Sufi Mohammad’s proscribed Tanzim-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) for the implementation of a Sharia justice system in Swat.

Sufi Mohammad, who opposes militancy, led thousands of TNSM workers into Swat to set up a peace camp there and to start talks with Maulana Fazlullah.

Preconditions

The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan, who was recently in Swat, says the militants are now likely to close their checkpoints in the region as the first step towards the new justice system.

On Monday, the TNSM announced 10 preconditions for its successful implementation.

These included the evacuation of all schools and hospital buildings by the army and an end to all security checks that hamper the movement of people.

The TNSM has called on the government to station troops away from civilian areas.

The group has also called on both sides to release the prisoners they are holding and asked the government to call back to duty the policemen and paramilitary soldiers who were suspended due to desertion or absence from duty.

It urged the government to compensate families that suffered human and material losses and called on thousands of displaced people to return to their homes.

Taleban Swat truce ‘indefinite – War News

“Should a decision of any kind be required, it will be made only via a meeting of the Security Cabinet and after taking into account all of the new political circumstances that have been created in the wake of the recent Israeli elections,” Yanki Galanti, the media adviser for Ehud Olmert, said Saturday night in a statement.

The consultations are to take place among Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Israel held elections Tuesday which resulted in a near-tie between Livni’s centrist Kadima party and the right-wing Likud party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. It is not yet clear who will emerge as prime minister.

Israel agreed January 21 to temporarily halt its three-week military operation in Gaza, which it began in response to repeated rocket attacks into southern Israel. Since then, Egypt has been trying to broker an agreement between the two sides.

On Friday, a spokesman for Hamas told CNN that Israeli and Hamas negotiators have “almost reached agreement” on a long-term truce.

Tahir Annono, who is in Cairo for the truce meetings, said there would be meetings Friday and Saturday, and on Sunday an announcement would be made.

Hamas’ deputy leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said that the truce would last for 18 months and all commercial border crossings between Gaza and Israel would be opened.

The security of Israelis who have been targets of the rocket attacks from Gaza and the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit are priorities as Israel considers the next steps in its conflict with Hamas, Olmert said Saturday through his media adviser.

Olmert has been under pressure to secure Shalit’s release as part of a broader cease-fire deal. However, the cease-fire in January did not include Shalit’s release as a condition.

Shalit was 19 when he was captured on June 25, 2006, by Palestinian militants in Gaza. They tunneled into Israel and attacked an Israeli army outpost near the Gaza-Israel-Egypt border, killing two other soldiers in the assault. Israel immediately launched a military incursion into Gaza to rescue him, but failed.

“We should like to emphasize that the security of residents of the south and the release of Gilad Shalit are currently at the top (of) Israel’s priorities,” the statement said.

Israel denies reports of Hamas negotiations

Meanwhile, rockets were fired into Israel on Friday, causing no damage or injuries, and Israeli warplanes struck the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, wounding two Popular Resistance Committee fighters.

Israel and Hamas had a six-month cease-fire mediated by Egypt starting last June, but it was repeatedly violated and after it ended Israel launched a three-week air, land and sea assault on Gaza aimed at stopping the rockets and weakening Hamas. Some 1,300 Palestinians were killed and thousands of buildings and homes destroyed. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, also died.

The new prospective accord, again being mediated by Egypt, is aimed at rebuilding Gaza after the war and involves both reconstruction and reconciliation between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, according to Ismael Ridwan, a Hamas spokesman, who spoke by telephone after extensive talks between Egyptian and Hamas officials.

He said among the materials that would be allowed to flow into Gaza in the new arrangement were cement and steel, which Egypt would monitor. Those materials are desperately needed for rebuilding, but the agreement would not allow pipes, cables and chemicals that Israel fears could be used for bombs.

Israel wanted to include the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, seized and held by Hamas since the summer of 2006, but Hamas said that would happen only in a separate, if linked, deal that frees hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The director of Hamas’s political bureau in Syria, Khaled Meshal, said that there was no agreement about Corporal Shalit and that Israel was trying to link his release with opening the border crossings into Gaza.

“We are opposed to that, and we have made that clear to the Egyptian authorities,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview on Libyan television. He was in Tripoli to thank the Libyan leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, for his support of Hamas during the Gaza conflict.

Mr. Meshal’s deputy, Moussa Abu Marzouk, told the Egyptian state news agency late Thursday that an 18-month truce with Israel had been agreed on and that it would include opening the crossings into Gaza from Israel and would be announced within two days.

But the senior Israeli official, who plays a key role in such negotiations and speaks only on condition of anonymity, said that all of this was premature because Israel’s elections last Tuesday put off any serious consideration of Hamas’s offer and that consultations would not start again until next week.

“We are only allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, and that has not changed,” the Israeli official said. “Egypt has not yet come to us with the details of what it discussed with Hamas.” Amos Gilad, Israel’s negotiator with Egypt on the truce, is to head back to Cairo at the start of the coming week.

One big concern of Israel’s is guarantees that Hamas is not rearming through smuggling tunnels from Egypt or on the international arms market; Israeli officials will be looking for evidence in the new deal that such re-supplies have been stopped.

Hamas Sees Cease-Fire Within Days; Israel Demurs