US evaluating Taliban video of captive couple in Afghanistan

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US evaluating Taliban video of captive couple in Afghanistan 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Tuesday it is evaluating a video released by the Afghan Taliban showing a Canadian man and his American wife warning that their Afghan captors will kill them and their children unless the Kabul government ends its executions of Taliban prisoners.

 

The video, which has not been independently verified by The AP, shows Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlan Coleman, who were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012, calling on Canada and the United States to pressure the Afghan government into changing its policy on executing captured Taliban prisoners. Coleman has told her family that she gave birth to two children in captivity.

 

"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. "We remain concerned, obviously, about the welfare of Caitlan and her family, and we continue to urge for their immediate release on humanitarian grounds."

 

The video, which was uploaded Tuesday on YouTube, came to public attention through the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online.

 

In a statement Tuesday, Global Affairs Canada spokesman Michael O'Shaughnessy said the government was aware of the latest video. He said the government will not comment further or release any information that might risk endangering the safety of Canadian citizens abroad.

 

In the video, the scraggily bearded Boyle said 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, either by the Afghan government or by Canada, somehow, or the United States."

 

Coleman, wearing a black headscarf, added: "I know this must be very terrifying and horrifying for my family to hear that these men are willing to go to these lengths, but they are."

 

A phone message left at a number listed for Coleman's family in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, was not immediately returned.

 

The couple set off in the summer of 2012 for a journey that took them to Russia, the central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then to Afghanistan. Her parents, Jim and Lyn Coleman, last heard from their son-in-law on Oct. 8, 2012, from an internet cafe in what Josh described as an "unsafe" part of Afghanistan.

 

In 2013, the couple appeared in two videos asking the U.S. government to free them from the Taliban. The Colemans received a letter last November in which their daughter said she had given birth to a second child in captivity.

 

"I pray to hear from you again, to hear how everybody is doing," the letter said.

 

In July, Jim Coleman, speaking to the online news service Circa News, issued a plea to top Taliban commanders to be "kind and merciful" and let the couple go.

 

"As a man, father and now grandfather, I am asking you to show mercy and release my daughter, her husband, and our beautiful grandchildren," Jim Coleman said. "Please grant them an opportunity to continue their lives with us, and bring peace to their families."

___

Associated Press writer Charles J. Gans in New York contributed to this report.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-08-31

[Kerryd]

I just spent nearly 2 hours writing about this very same story and it shows up on TV a few minutes later.

 

I have my suspicions about the legitimacy of this "kidnapping" for a few reasons. 

For starters, Joshua Boyle used to be married to the sister of Omar Khadr, the Canadian kid who travelled to Afghanistan with his father and brother to "kill Americans" and was held in Guantanamo Bay for 10 years for his part in throwing a grenade that killed an American medic. (Authorities claim that his previous marriage to Omar's sister and his "kidnapping" are just a coincidence.)

 

Next - Joshua sent an email on 8 Oct 2012 claiming "they were in a very unsafe part of Afghanistan". He also made withdrawals from his bank account on the 8th and 9th. The email and the withdrawals were done in Kabul (the capital and perhaps the safest place in the country). I believe he sent that email as a set up to his "kidnapping". They "disappeared" shortly thereafter (I suspect they left Kabul to go meet up with their Taliban contact in the Wardak province which is a known Taliban stronghold and where they were allegedly kidnapped).

 

Next - Joshua's newest wife (Caitlan) was 5-6 months pregnant before the "kidnapping" (she was due to give birth in January). According to her father, Josh and Caitlan were "probably looking to work for an aid agency" though Josh supposedly planned on them returning (to Canada or the US) in December. I doubt they would have gone working for an aid agency in Kabul, in the winter, for just a couple of weeks, with a wife almost into her third trimester. I spent 2 winters working in Kabul and being how high up in the mountains it is (6,000' or 1,800 m), it gets very cold and often gets a lot of snow.

 

Also - according to Caitlan's mother, Caitlan has a liver condition that "requires regular medical attention".

 

Next - NO group has ever claimed responsibility for "kidnapping" these 2 and NO group has ever demanded a ransom of ANY kind. In 2013 an Afghan man emailed 2 short videos to Joshua's father. The videos were supposedly made in May and August 2013 and were sent to the father in July and August. The father didn't make them public until June 2014 when the clamour over Obama trading 5 high level Taliban prisoners for the American deserter Bergdahl was making the news. (The fathers says he gave them to "law enforcement" after first receiving them though.) The families were disappointed that this couple wasn't included in the prisoner swap.

 

In those 2 short videos (less than 2 minutes each) they ask for the "government" to help them and give the names and contact details of some relatives. Authorities are unable to determine if the dates are genuine because they don't mention anything that would give a clue and the videos where shot in such a way that there were no other clues about their possible location. In those videos, Caitlan mentions her child but it isn't shown and she doesn't mention it's name or gender.

Again - no group claimed responsibility or demanded a ransom in either of these videos.

 

Now a new video has appeared, only this time instead of being emailed to a family member it was posted on Youtube. Again, no ransom demands and no group claiming responsibility. This time though "they" want the US/Canadian government to pressure the Taliban government into stopping executions of convicted Taliban terrorists or they may be murdered in reprisal. 

 

So, some group "kidnaps" these two and keeps them prisoner for nearly 4 years without making any ransom demands or claims of responsibility. They are obviously taking care of their "hostages" as no mention was made of Caitlan's liver condition (that 4 years ago required "regular medical attention") and she has apparently given birth to 2 children now. In 4 years of "captivity" their captors make a total of 3 videos (2 in 2013 and 1 in 2016) and nothing else. 

(From what little mention I can find so far, in all 3 videos only these 2 are shown. Unlike other hostage videos where the captors are shown brandishing weapons and threatening the hostages, while standing in front of some kind of flag.)

 

Personally, I suspect he is a Taliban sympathizer who took a roundabout route to get to Afghanistan to avoid suspicion. He sent the email to set up their disappearance, then withdrew the cash and left Kabul to make contact with the Taliban.

I think these videos are nothing but a ruse designed to avoid suspicion and to set things up so that if they ever decide to come back they won't be seen (and arrested) as terrorist supporters. 

 

I went to the site that apparently found the newest video on Youtube and published it, but I'm not paying a $300 annual subscription fee just to watch it. There are segments of the 2 videos from 2013 in articles about the "kidnapping" and in those clips the woman is wearing clothing that is more Pakistani than Afghan Taliban (she is shown wearing a embroidered black hijab, not the blue burqa that is standard dress for women in Afghan Taliban controlled areas). He is wearing the same style shirt/pants that are common throughout the region. In one of the videos the background is just black, in the other it looks like someone hung a bed sheet as a backdrop.