The pair were kidnapped in 2012 during a backpacking trip.
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A newly released video shows a Canadian man and his American wife, held captive in Afghanistan for nearly four years, pleading for government help to save their lives.
In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said US officials were aware of the video and were examining it “for its validity”.
The Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security (NDS), said the militants belonged to Quetta Council, a term normally referenced to the Taliban group and Haqqani Network leadership based in Pakistan.
This comes as the Afghan officials have always been raising concerns regarding the presence of the Taliban group and Haqqani network leadership councils in Pakistan.
A newly released video shows a Canadian man and his American wife, held captive in Afghanistan for nearly four years, pleading for government help to save their lives.In the video, Boyle and Caitlan sombrely warn they will be killed by their captors unless Kabul abandons its policy of executing captured prisoners. “Either by the Afghan government or Canada, somehow”.
The Daily Beast online news organization said on Tuesday it had obtained the new video, which depicted Coleman saying her captors were threatening to kill the family if Taliban prisoners were executed in Afghan jails.
“The fact that the Coleman family is still in captivity despite multiple attempts by Haqqani to work her release and the release of her family underscores the tremendous shortcomings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the hostage fusion cell”, Rep. Duncan Hunter, a frequent critic of the Obama administration’s hostage policies, told The Daily Beast in a statement. In July 2016, Colemans parents revealed to the media they received a letter from their daughter saying she had given birth in captivity to a second child. 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. Bowe Bergdahl case, a senior source in the Taliban’s Qatar office told The Daily Beast.
Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle were kidnapped in 2012.. Two videos appeared in 2014 in which they asked for American help in securing their release.
Anas Haqqani, whose execution sentence prompted the release of the new video, was captured by US authorities in 2014 while traveling through Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
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Another American is believed to be held by the Haqqani network, but the person’s identity has not been made public.
