Family held captive freed in dramatic rescue
WASHINGTON: Five years after they were seized by a terrorist network in the mountains of Afghanistan, an American woman, her Canadian husband and their three children — all born in captivity — are free after a dramatic rescue orchestrated by the US and Pakistani governments, officials say.
On Thursday the United States said Pakistan rescued Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle — who were abducted and held by the Haqqani network, which has ties to the Taliban and is considered by the US to be a terrorist organisation.
The operation, which came after years of US pressure on Pakistan for assistance, unfolded quickly and included what some described as a shootout and a dangerous raid. US officials did not confirm the details.
‘‘Today they are free,’’ US President Donald Trump said in a statement, crediting the USPakistani partnership for securing the release.
Trump later praised Pakistan for its willingness to ‘‘do more to provide security in the region’’.
The couple were kidnapped in October 2012 while on a backpacking trip that took them to Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then to 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 on Thursday the family was ‘‘being repatriated to the country of their origin’’. But yesterday it was not known when they would return to North America.
A US national security official said they were together in a safe, undisclosed location in Pakistan.
The Pakistani military said the family had been freed in ‘‘an intelligencebased operation by Pakistan troops’’ after they had 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 heard from the kidnappers were, ‘‘kill the hostage’’, his father, Patrick told reporters after speaking to his son.
The younger Boyle also told his father he had 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 US military official said that a military hostage team had flown to Pakistan on Wednesday, prepared to fly the family out. Health checks were completed and a transport plane was ready to go. But as the family were walking to the plane, Boyle said he did not want to board.
Boyle’s father said his son was concerned about boarding the plane as it was headed to Bagram Air Base and he wanted the family returned to North America. Another US 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.