Parents of freed woman vent anger at son-in-law
Backpack trip to Afghanistan led to 5 years as captives.
WASHINGTON — The parents of an American woman freed with her family after five years of captivity say they are elated, but also angry at their son-in-law for taking their daughter to Afghanistan.
“Taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place, to me, and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable,” Caitlan Coleman’s father, Jim, told ABC News.
Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle were rescued Wednesday, five years after they had been abducted by a Taliban-linked extremist network while in Afghanistan as part of a multi-nation backpacking trip. She was pregnant at the time and had three children in captivity.
Two Pakistani security officials say the family left by plane from Islamabad on Friday. The officials did not say where the family was headed, but Boyle’s family has said the couple’s plan is to return to Canada. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with official protocol.
Caitlan Coleman is from Stewartstown, Pa., and Boyle is Canadian.
Coleman’s mother, Lynda, said the opportunity to finally speak to her daughter after she was freed was “incredible.”
“I’ve been waiting to hear that voice for so long. And then to hear her voice and have it sound exactly like the last time I talked to her,”
‘I’ve been waiting to hear that voice for so long.’ Lynda Coleman
Mother of Caitlan Coleman, ex-hostage
she said.
Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said the Pakistani raid that led to the family’s rescue was based on a tip from U.S. intelligence and shows that Pakistan will act against a “common enemy” when Washington shares information.
U.S. officials have long accused Pakistan of ignoring groups like the Haqqani network, which was holding the family.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump, who previously warned Pakistan to stop harboring militants, praised Pakistan for its willingness to “do more to provide security in the region.”
The operation appeared to have unfolded quickly and ended with what some described as a dangerous raid, a shootout and a captor’s final, terrifying threat
to “kill the hostage.”
Boyle told his parents that he, his wife and their children were intercepted by Pakistani forces while being transported in the back or trunk of their captors’ car and that some of his captors were killed. He suffered only a shrapnel wound, his family said.
U.S. officials did not confirm those details.
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 Thursday, as the family members were walking to the plane, Boyle said he did not want to board, the official said.
Boyle’s father said his son did not want to board the plane because it was headed to Bagram Air Base and that 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-Qaida financier.
Her father, the late Ahmed Said Khadr, and the family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly when Omar Khadr was a boy.
The U.S. Justice Department said neither Boyle nor Coleman is wanted for any federal crime.
U.S. officials call the Haqqani group a terrorist organization and have targeted its leaders with drone strikes. But the group also operates like a criminal network. Unlike the Islamic State group, it does not typically execute Western hostages, preferring to ransom them for cash.