Washington ? The Bush administration is monitoring negotiations aimed at winning the release of two American missionaries from Kansas who have been held hostage by rebels in the Philippines for nearly a year, senior U.S. officials said Thursday night.

The officials said that the negotiations were being conducted by a group known to the rebels and that the talks were at a delicate stage. The negotiators were not identified.

The discussions involved possible payments of several hundred thousand dollars and other considerations, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. One official said the negotiations were being monitored by the highest levels at the White House, intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

“There has been some progress and activity as recent as today,” the official said late Thursday.

The officials also said they were encouraged by evidence that the two missionaries were still alive.

Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group with links to Sept. 11 suspect Osama bin Laden, is holding Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kan., and Ediborah Yap, a nurse from the Philippines.

Doug Burnham, Martin’s brother from Rose Hill, Kan., said the family had not heard anything about negotiations late Thursday.

The negotiations, first reported by The Washington Times, come less than a month after the State Department acknowledged a growing threat of kidnappings across the world and announced a change in the United States’ decades old hostage negotiation policy.

The Bush administration shifted the policy by pledging to “make every effort” to gain the release of any American kidnapped overseas.

Previously, the U.S. government focused on protecting its diplomats and workers around the world and didn’t review every private kidnapping case “to the extent to which it would be examined now,” State Department Richard Boucher said.

But the State Department also reaffirmed its commitment to some parts of the original policy, ruling out paying ransom or making other concessions. It advised corporations with kidnapped employees to do the same.

Abu Sayyaf gunmen raided the Dos Palmas resort last May 27 and abducted three Americans and 17 Filipinos. All of the hostages were taken to Abu Sayyaf strongholds on Basilan Island near Zamboanga.