Taliban’s captives who had 3 babies in jail freed
A COUPLE held hostage by Taliban terrorists for five years were freed yesterday – along with the three children they had while in captivity.
Canadian Joshua Boyle and his American wife Caitlan Coleman were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012.
They were rescued after a US tip-off during an operation near the Afghan border, the Pakistani army said.
US intelligence agencies had been tracking the family, and soldiers intercepted them as they were being transported from their prison across the border into Pakistan on Wednesday.
Donald Trump said it was a ‘positive moment’ for US-Pakistan ties. ‘Ms Coleman gave birth to the couple’s three children while they were in captivity,’ he said in a White House statement.
‘Today, they are free. The Pakistani govern- ment’s co-operation is a sign that it is honouring America’s wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region.’
Mrs Coleman, who grew up in Pennsylvania, was pregnant with their oldest son when she was captured. She has since welcomed another boy, and a girl who was born a few months ago.
In hostage videos filmed in 2016, she suggested she may have been raped by her captors and alluded to other children she had given birth to or carried who did not survive.
Her husband reportedly refused to board a US military plane yesterday as he was fearful he would be punished for his first marriage to Zaynab Khadr.
Miss Khadr is the sister of Omar Khadr, who spent ten years in Guantanamo Bay after pleading guilty to murdering US army Sergeant Christopher Speer in Afghanistan in 2002.
‘It is honouring America’s wishes’