‘Freed hostages held in Pakistan for over a year’

CAITLAN COLEMAN, the 31-year-old American woman who gave birth to three children while held hostage by a Taliban-linked network, has disputed Pakistan’s account of her rescue in an interview likely to embarrass the country’s powerful military.

Pakistan has long bridled at accusations it harbours militants, including the Taliban-linked Haqqanis, inside the country.

Yet in her first interview since release, Ms Coleman said that she and her family had spent “more than a year” in Pakistan up to their rescue on Oct 11.

Pakistan’s military had claimed to have freed the hostages as they were crossing the border from Afghanistan.

“We were not crossing into Pakistan that day,” Ms Coleman told the Toronto Star, explaining that the Haqqanis had often kept her and her husband, whom they had captured in 2012, in Pakistan.

The family spent their final few months in Kohat and Banu, districts in the lawless tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, she said. According to Ms Coleman, her husband, Joshua Boyle, 34, understood enough Farsi to keep tabs on their location.

America is piling on pressure for Pakistan to “do more” in the fight against terrorism. Speaking from Delhi, Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, yesterday said that extremists pose “a threat to Pakistan’s own stability”.