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Pakistan official details car chase that freed kidnapped U.S.-Canadian family
October 13, 2017 - Pakistani troops shot out the tires of a vehicle carrying a kidnapped U.S.-Canadian couple and their children in a raid that led to the family’s release, a Pakistani security official said on Friday.
The operation late on Wednesday freed American Caitlan Campbell, her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle and their three children who were born in captivity following five years as hostages of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network. Taliban sources said the family spent most of their captivity at Haqqani strongholds inside Pakistan, and not in Afghanistan as early Pakistani reports had indicated. A senior Pakistani security source on Friday detailed how the family, who were expected to leave Pakistan on Friday, were freed following a car chase in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan. He said Pakistani troops and intelligence agents, acting on a U.S. intelligence tip, zeroed in on a vehicle holding the family as they were being moved in Kurram agency.
Agents from Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy-agency and army soldiers attempted to intercept the vehicle, but it sped away and was chased into a district in northwest Pakistan, according to the security source. “Our troops fired at the vehicle and burst its tres,” he said, declining to be identified because he is not authorized to speak openly to the media. The kidnappers managed to escape, the security official added, saying the troops wouldn’t fire at the fleeing captors for fear of harming the hostages. The army recovered the hostages safely from the car. Major General Asif Ghafoor, military spokesman for Pakistan’s army, told NBC News that the vehicle’s driver and another militant had escaped to a nearby refugee camp.
A second Pakistani security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. drones had been circling the town of Kohat, on the edge of the tribal areas on Wednesday, suggesting U.S. co-operation included sophisticated surveillance inside Pakistan. The U.S. embassy in Pakistan declined to comment on the drone report. The family’s rescue has been hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump as a “positive moment” for U.S.-Pakistan relations, which have frayed in recent years amid Washington’s assertions that Islamabad was not doing enough to tackle Haqqani militants who are believed to be on Pakistani soil.
Trump, in a statement, said the release of the hostages indicates Pakistan was acquiescing to “America’s wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region”. Pakistani officials bristle at claims Islamabad is not doing enough to tackle Islamist militants. After the release of the family, they emphasized the importance of co-operation and intelligence sharing by Washington, which has threatened to cut military aid and other punitive measures against Pakistan.
HOSTAGES LOCATION
An American woman, her Canadian husband and their three young children have been released after years of being held captive by a network with ties to the Taliban, U.S. and Pakistani officials said Thursday. U.S. officials say Pakistan secured the release of Caitlan Coleman of Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, and her husband, Canadian Joshua Boyle, who were abducted five years ago while traveling in Afghanistan and had been held by the Haqqani network in Pakistan. Coleman was pregnant when she was captured. The couple had three children while in captivity, and all have been freed, U.S. officials say. A U.S. national security official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation, commended Pakistan for their critical assistance in securing the family's release — and described the cooperation as an important step in the right direction for U.S.-Pakistani relations.
The U.S. has long criticized Pakistan for failing to aggressively go after the Haqqanis, who have been behind many attacks against U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, its military said in a statement that U.S. intelligence agencies had been tracking the hostages and discovered they had come into Pakistan on Oct. 11 through its tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. "All hostages were recovered safe and sound and are being repatriated to the country of their origin," the military said. Three Pakistani military officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren't allowed to speak to journalists, also confirmed the hostages' identities. The release, which came together rapidly Wednesday, comes nearly five years to the day since Coleman and Boyle lost touch with their families while traveling in a mountainous region near the Afghan capital, Kabul.
This still image made from a 2013 video released by the Coleman family shows Caitlan Coleman and her husband, Canadian Joshua Boyle in a militant video given to the family.
The couple set off in the summer 2012 for a journey that took them to Russia, the central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then to Afghanistan. Coleman's parents last heard from their son-in-law on Oct. 8, 2012, from an internet cafe in what Boyle 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. Coleman's parents, Jim and Lyn Coleman, told the online Circa News service in July 2016 that they received a letter from their daughter in November 2015, in which she wrote that she'd given birth to a second child in captivity. It's unclear whether they knew she'd had a third. "I pray to hear from you again, to hear how everybody is doing," the letter said. In that interview, Jim Coleman 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."
The family was being held by the Haqqani network. U.S. officials call the group a terrorist organization and have targeted its leaders with drone strikes. But the group also operates like a criminal network. Unlike the Islamic State group, it does not typically execute Western hostages, preferring to ransom them for cash. Trump has called on Pakistan to do more to tackle militant organizations that use its territory as a home base. "We can no longer be silent about Pakistan's safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond," Trump said in a recent speech announcing his Afghanistan policy. He issued a stark warning: "We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change, and that will change immediately."
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