U.S.-Canadian family, in captivity for five years, freed in Pakistan
Five years after being taken hostage in Afghanistan, an American woman and her Canadian husband are free, along with their three children, all born in captivity. They were released in a dramatic confrontation punctuated by gunf ire, off icials said Thursd
The U.S. said Pakistan accomplished the release of Caitlan Coleman of Stewartstown, Pa., and her husband, Canadian Joshua Boyle, who were abducted and held by the Haqqani network, which has ties to the Taliban and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States. The operation, which came after years of U.S. pressure on Pakistan for assistance, unfolded quickly and included what some described as a shootout and a dangerous raid. U.S. officials did not confirm the details.
“Today they are free,” President Donald Trump said in a statement, crediting the U.S.-Pakistani partnership for securing the release. Trump later praised Pakistan for its willingness to “do more to provide security in the region” and said the release suggests other “countries are starting to respect the United States of America once again.”
The couple were kidnapped in October 2012 while on a backpacking trip that took them to Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. Coleman was several months pregnant at the time, “naive,” but also “adventuresome” with a humanitarian bent, her father James told The Associated Press in 2012.
The Pakistani military said early Thursday the family was “being repatriated to the country of their origin.” But as of Thursday evening, it was not known when they would return to North America. They were together in a safe, undisclosed location in Pakistan, according to a U.S. national security official.
The Pakistani military said the family had been freed in “an intelligence-based operation by Pakistan troops” after they’d crossed the border from Afghanistan.
Boyle and the high commissioner for Pakistan to Canada described a scene in which gunshots rang out as Boyle, his wife and their children were intercepted by Pakistani forces while being transported in the trunk of their captors’ car. Boyle told his parents there was a shootout in which some of his captors were killed and that the last words he’d heard from the kidnappers were, “kill the hostage,” his father, Patrick told reporters after speaking with his son. The younger Boyle also told his father he’d been hit by shrapnel in the leg. Three intelligence officials said the confrontation happened near a road crossing in the Nawa Kili area of the district of Kohat in northwest Pakistan.
The high commissioner, Tariq Azim Khan, said, “We know there was a shootout and Pakistan commandos carried out an attack and rescued the hostages.”
A U.S. military official said that a military hostage team had flown to Pakistan Wednesday, prepared to fly the family out. The team did a preliminary health assessment and had a transport plane ready to go. But sometime after daybreak there, as the family members were walking to the plane, Boyle said he did not want to board.
Boyle’s father said his son did not want to board the plane because it was headed to Bagram Air Base and the family wanted to return directly to North America. Another U.S. official said Boyle was nervous about being in “custody,” given his family ties.
He was once married to Zaynab Khadr, the older sister of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr and the daughter of a senior al-Qaeda financier. Her father, the late Ahmed Said Khadr, and the family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly when Omar Khadr was a boy.
The Canadian-born Omar Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. troops after a firefight and was taken to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Officials had discounted any link between that background and Boyle’s capture, with one official describing it in 2014 as a “horrible coincidence.”
The U.S. Justice Department said neither Boyle nor Coleman are wanted for any federal crime.
The couple told U.S. officials and their families they wanted to fly commercially to Canada.
Boyle’s father called the rescue a miracle. Coleman’s parents, Jim and Lyn Coleman, meanwhile, posted a statement on the door of their Pennsylvania home expressing joy. Lyn Coleman said “I am in a state of euphoria, stunned and overjoyed.”
The developments came rapidly Wednesday afternoon —nearly five years to the day after Coleman and Boyle lost touch with their families.