The U.S. State Department is evaluating a video released by the Taliban showing a married American woman and Canadian man saying that their Taliban captors will kill them and their children unless the government of Afghanistan halts the execution of Taliban prisoners.
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In the clip, Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, make likely coerced statements begging their own governments to pressure Afghanistan into stopping its killings of captured Taliban terrorists.
Her parents, Jim and Lyn Coleman, last heard from their son-in-law on October 8, 2012, from an internet cafe in what Josh described as an “unsafe” part of Afghanistan.
“They will execute us, women and children included, if the policies of the Afghan government are not overturned, either by the Afghan government or by Canada, somehow, or the United States”.
In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said US officials were aware of the video and were examining it “for its validity”.
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. If the date is proved accurate, it would be the first time the couple have appeared in a video since 2013.
The footage was uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday and came to public attention through the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online, AP said.
“The Government of Canada will not comment or release any information which may compromise or risk endangering the safety of Canadian citizens overseas”, read an email from the Global Affairs Spokesman Michael O’Shaughnessy.
Last month, according to ABC 27 News, Coleman’s parents – Jim and Lyn Coleman of Stewartstown said they had received a letter from their daughter in November through a neutral party.
In the video Coleman appears to be pregnant.
The Colemans last saw their daughter in July 2012, when she set off for Russian Federation on a hiking trip with Boyle that took them through Central Asia and ultimately into war-torn Afghanistan.
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A video clip of the two shared by SITE Intelligence group showed the couple beg for their lives, urging the Afghanistan government to stop execution of Taliban prisoners, the News reported. “These blessings brought us great joy”, James Coleman said in the video made last June at the family’s home.
