Pak rescued hostages after threat of US raid

WASHINGTON:THE US not only provided Pakistan intelligence about an American woman and her family held by the Haqqani Network, but also threatened that it may send in a team of Navy SEALS similar to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, if Islamabad did not respond to the information, according to a report.

Pakistan did deliver, securing the release of Caitlan Coleman, her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle and their three children last week, who had been held captive for five years after being kidnapped in Afghanistan.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that a CIA drone hovering over a Haqqani Network compound in Pakistan in September had picked up grainy images of a woman and children among the fighters. They looked like Coleman and her children.

Commandoes of Navy SEAL Team 6 began training for an operation on the compound.

US intelligence soon observed the terrorists were preparing to move the family. Alarmed, the Americans instructed their ambassador David Hale to deliver an urgent message to Islamabad: “Resolve this, or the United States will”, according to the news report.

Implicit in that message was the threat that failure to act would lead to a SEAL raid on Pakistani soil and a repeat of the humiliation that it brought them. Also, it would reinforce US perception that Islamabad was in with the Haqqani Network.