BOGOTA, June 5 (Reuters) - Colombian guerrillas kidnapped a local police commander even as President Alvaro Uribe announced he had freed a jailed rebel leader to try to broker the release of rebel-held hostages, authorities said on Tuesday.

Police Capt. Guillermo Javier Solorzano, a local businessman and his son were forced into a vehicle late Monday by uniformed men in Valle del Cauca province around 272 miles (440 km) southwest of Bogota, police said.

"They were kidnapped by group of men who arrived by surprise and acted as if they were a military operation," the Valle del Cauca police said in a statement.

Regional police commander Col. Ricardo Restrepo told local Caracol radio guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were responsible and were seeking to extort the families.

Solorzano is commander of Florida, a strategic town and one of the two municipalities the FARC are demanding the Uribe's government demilitarize as a condition to talks on releasing hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans held since 2003.

Violence and kidnapping associated with Latin America's longest-running guerrilla conflict have dropped under Uribe's U.S.-financed campaign to fight rebels and the cocaine trade. But the FARC are still battling in rural parts of the country.

The kidnapping took place as Uribe was announcing the release of Rodrigo Granda, a top guerrilla commander who the government freed to act as a negotiator to try to broker an agreement between the government and the FARC.

Uribe's release of Granda and around 180 other rebels has revived hopes that the FARC may reach an agreement on hostages held for as long as nine years in secret jungle camps.

But the FARC are still demanding the government pull troops back from an area the size of New York City around Florida and Pradera to facilitate talks on the hostages. Uribe dismisses that as an unacceptable condition.

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