Family freed from terror group
CANADIAN MAN AND WIFE WERE KIDNAPPED FIVE YEARS AGO
ACanadian man, his American wife and their three young children born during the couple’s five years in captivity were freed in a dramatic Pakistani commando raid and shootout, authorities announced Thursday.
The Pakistani military said Joshua Boyle, his wife Caitlan Coleman and their children had been freed in “an intelligence-based operation” after they’d crossed the border from Afghanistan, where they had been abducted by a group with ties to the Taliban.
Tariq Azim Khan, the country’s high commissioner to Canada, said once the military received word of the family’s whereabouts from U.S. intelligence authorities, they acted quickly.
Khan described a dramatic scene in which gunshots rang out as the family was intercepted by Pakistani forces while being transported by their captors in the trunk of a van.
Intelligence officials in Pakistan said the confrontation happened near a road crossing in the Nawa Kili area of the district of Kohat in northwest Pakistan.
“We know there was a shootout and Pakistan commandos carried out an attack and rescued the hostages,” Khan said from London.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who has met with the Boyle family in the past, said they had endured an “absolutely horrible ordeal.” Freeland refused to describe the circumstances of the release, citing security reasons but said Canada had been working with the U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan, whom she thanked.
“We all have to really remember what a traumatic experience this family has gone through — really unspeakable,” Freeland said in Mexico City.
Boyle and Coleman, who was pregnant at the time of the abduction, were held by the Haqqani network, a group U.S. officials call a terrorist organization.
It was not immediately clear when the couple would return to North America.
Boyle’s parents, who live in Smiths Falls, Ont., issued a video statement released to the Toronto Star saying they spoke with their son over the phone early Thursday morning.
“That’s the first time in five years we got to hear his voice. It was amazing,” Linda Boyle said. “He told us ... how much his children were looking forward to meeting their grandparents, and that he’d see me in a couple days.”
His father, Patrick Boyle, thanked those involved in the case.
“We’d really like to thank the American and Afghan governments as well as our own Canadian team,” he said. “Most importantly this morning we relayed to the high commissioner of Pakistan here in Canada our profound thanks for the courageous Pakistani soldiers who risked their lives and got all five of ours out in a rescue.”
Coleman’s parents, meanwhile, posted a statement on the door of their Pennsylvania home saying they appreciated “all the interest and concern being expressed at the joyful news that Caity, Josh and our grandchildren have been released after five long years of captivity.”
A U.S. national security official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the case publicly, said the family was not in American custody but were together in a safe location in Pakistan. American officials had planned on moving the family out of Pakistan on a U.S. transport plane but Boyle refused to board, the official said.
Another U.S. official said Boyle was nervous about being in “custody” given that he was previously married to Zaynab Khadr, the sister of Canadian Omar Khadr, who spent 10 years at Guantanamo Bay.