Neither of the children have appeared in videos released by The Taliban.
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The release of a video showing a United States and a Canadian citizen held hostage by the Taliban is created to pressure the Afghan government not to impose the death sentence on the son of a feared militant leader, a Taliban source said on Wednesday.
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.
Joshua Boyle and Caitlin Coleman were kidnapped by militants in 2012 and are shown in propaganda footage calling for a change in the Afghan government’s policy on the execution of prisoners.
Coleman was pregnant when the couple was kidnapped in 2012 and it’s believed she has given birth twice while being held captive.
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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A phone message left at a number listed for Coleman’s family in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, was not immediately returned.
August 29 (ANI): A local court in Afghanistan has sentenced Taliban commander Sirajuddin Haqqani’s brother Anas Haqqani to death, reports said. Both incidents are assessed to possibly be in retaliation for the recent death sentence given to Haqqani Network leader Siraj Haqqani’s brother Anas.
“The Haqqanis are ticked off”, a counterterrorism official familiar with hostage recovery operations told ABC News.
In the video, Boyle says the couple’s captors “are terrified of the thought of their own mortality approaching, and are saying that they will take reprisals on our family”. “They will execute us, women and children included, if the policies of the Afghan government are not overturned”.
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Acknowledging the video, John Kirby, the spokesperson of US State Department said that they are examining the video for its validity and are concerned about the safety of the couple.
