ATHENS, Dec 16: A Greek bus hostage siege ended peacefully on Thursday when all 23 passengers were freed and police revealed the two armed Albanian hijackers had been bluffing when they threatened to blow up the bus.

Greek officials said the training the security forces received in protecting last August's Athens Olympic Games and phone calls to the gunmen from their relatives urging them to give themselves up played key roles in ending the drama.

Hostages portrayed the gunmen who kept them captive for 18 hours as angry young men whose sole motive was money and who finally caved in after phone calls to the bus from relatives.

The hostages said it became easier for passengers to manipulate the gunmen as the siege dragged on with no sign of authorities agreeing to a $1 million ransom demand. "They were vulnerable. We could get them around," said Stella Matara who was among the last six hostages released.

Speaking after the end of the siege, which lasted from dawn on Wednesday until just after midnight on Thursday morning, Greek police chief George Angelakos said the gunmen did not have any explosives despite telling hostages they had dynamite.

Their only weapons were hunting rifles. "There were no explosives. They just claimed they had explosives to emphasize the fact that they could do harm," Angelakos told reporters. -Reuters