A German engineer and four of his Afghan colleagues were exchanged by the Taliban for five of their commanders which were apparently related to the abductors. Rudolf Blechschmidt, 62, and his Afghan colleagues were being held hostage by the Taliban since July in central province of Maidan Wardak.

"At 3:45 the German engineer along with five Afghans were released by the Taliban and some seven minutes ago I handed them over to intelligence officials and now they are on their way to Kabul," said Haji Naeem Khan, chief of the Jaghatu district.

"The German citizen ... who was kidnapped in Afghanistan is once again free. We are happy and relieved," Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement, adding he was under the protection of Afghan security forces.

Four employees of the Red Cross, who tried to facilitate the abducted German's release, were taken hostage by Taliban, but freed in good health two days later. The hostage is one of the two German engineers, who along with their six Afghan colleagues, were kidnapped while visiting a construction project site in Maidan Wardak province on July 18 by local criminals with close ties to Taliban militants.

Mohammad Naeem, governor of Jaghato district in Wardak province, said that the exchange happened at the government intelligence office in the provincial capital Maidan Shah about 37 miles east of Kabul, also mentioning the five prisoners freed for the hostages were somewhat unimportant Taliban commanders, but apparently related to the abductors of the German engineers.

The prisoners' release was not secured by use of force but rather through lengthy negotiations by Afghan mediators. Blechschmidt's fellow hostage Rüdiger Diedrich was shot and killed by the kidnappers after he collapsed from exhaustion. Blechschmidt appeared two days before his release on a new videotape, appealing to Afghan and German governments to make a deal with the militants for his release.