Coleman was pregnant at the time of the couple’s capture, and in November her parents received a letter telling saying that she’d given birth to a second child while held in captivity.
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In October that year, just before the pair went missing, Joshua sent Coleman’s family a message from an Internet cafe in what he described as an “unsafe” part of Afghanistan.
“I would tell you that the video is still being examined for its validity”, State Department spokesman John Kirby said in response to a question at his daily briefing.
In 2014, the Boyle and Coleman families decided to make videos of the couple public in light of the publicity surrounding the weekend rescue of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was freed from Taliban custody in exchange for the release of five high-level Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A Taliban spokesman says the video is not new and was recorded in 2015, adding that Boyle, Coleman and their two children remain in captivity and in good health. Two years ago, the Obama administration carried out a controversial prisoner swap of five Taliban commanders held at Guantanamo Bay for U.S. Army Sgt.
Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlan Coleman were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012 and the video is a call to Canada and the USA to pressure the Afghan government into changing its policy on executing captured Taliban prisoners.
A website called Site Intelligence Group (SITE), which monitors extremist activity online, posted the video Tuesday.
Otherwise, she says in the brief video, she, her husband and two children will be killed.
The couple was vacationing in Afghanistan when they were taken, according to previous reports.
The Taliban have appointed a new military chief as the insurgents try to gain more ground in Afghanistan rather than talk peace under a new leadership, Taliban officials said in telephone interviews over the weekend.
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The video is temporarily off line but we are working to bring it back for you. Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlin Coleman fear that if their captors demands are not met then they will all be killed.
