PESHAWAR - PAKISTAN said on Tuesday that soldiers rescued 80 kidnapped staff and students in a sting operation during a fierce battle, one day after they were snatched by masked Taleban gunmen.

The brazen abduction in a wild part of the north-west, which targeted staff and students from an army-run cadet college, had sparked increased fears of a widening backlash to a more than one-month offensive against the Taleban.

The military said all 71 cadets and nine staff were rescued when militants were moving them from the lawless tribal areas of North Waziristan to South Waziristan, where Washington accuses Al-Qaeda of plotting attacks on the West.

'The army established checkposts and all the routes were blocked. After a fierce fight the army was able to recover them,' the army said.

Officials near the college in Razmak said the students are aged 15 to 25 and were not training for the army.

They had been held up at gunpoint on Monday in the province close to Afghanistan where Pakistan has pressed an assault against the Taleban for more than a month amid fears the rebels were gaining ground in the country.

'We tried to secure the release through negotiation. After that, we were compelled to launch a military operation,' a military spokesman said in Peshawar, the main city in northwest Pakistan.

No soldiers or civilian casualties were reported in the sting operation.

Tribal elders and government officials had been locked in talks overnight on efforts to secure the release of the students and staff.

The students had been heading to the town of Bannu after the college closed for the summer, Bannu town police chief Iqbal Marwat told AFP, adding: 'They have been kidnapped by Taleban militants.' There had earlier been some confusion as to exactly how many students had gone missing, with numbers ranging from 20 to 100.

The incident fuelled already growing fears of revenge attacks for Pakistan's determined offensive, which has garnered widespread public support in the Muslim country for the first time and has upped attacks on civilians. -- AFP