Toronto, Oct 14 (AP) US-Canadian couple Caitlan Colemanand Joshua Boyle landed in Canada today, five years after theywere kidnapped in Afghanistan. They arrived with their threeyoung children, who were all born in captivity.
Boyle provided a written statement to The AssociatedPress on the plane saying his family has "unparalleledresilience and determination."Coleman and Boyle were rescued Wednesday, five yearsafter they had been abducted by a Taliban-linked extremistnetwork while in Afghanistan as part of a backpacking trip.
Coleman was pregnant at the time. Coleman is fromStewartstown, Pennsylvania, and Boyle is Canadian.
The final leg of the family's journey was an Air Canadaflight yesterday from London to Toronto.
Coleman, wearing a tan-colored headscarf, sat in theaisle of the business class cabin. She nodded wordlessly whenshe confirmed her identity to a reporter on board the flight.
In the two seats next to her were her two elder children.
In the seat beyond that was Boyle, with their youngestchild in his lap. US State Department officials were on theplane with them.
Boyle gave The Associated Press a handwritten statementexpressing disagreement with US foreign policy.
"God has given me and my family unparalleled resilienceand determination, and to allow that to stagnate, to pursuepersonal pleasure or comfort while there is still deliberateand organized injustice in the world would be a betrayal ofall I believe, and tantamount to sacrilege," he wrote.
He nodded to one of the State Department officials andsaid, "Their interests are not my interests."He added that one of his children is in poor health andhad to be force-fed by their Pakistani rescuers.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria saidthe Pakistani raid that led to the family's rescue was basedon a tip from US intelligence and shows that Pakistan will actagainst a "common enemy" when Washington shares information.
US officials have long accused Pakistan of ignoringgroups like the Haqqani network, which was holding the family.
A US national security official, who was not authorizedto discuss operational details of the release and spoke onlyon condition of anonymity, said the US obtained actionableinformation, passed it to Pakistani government officials,asked them to interdict and recover the hostages -- and theydid.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump, who previouslywarned Pakistan to stop harboring militants, praised Pakistanfor its willingness to "do more to provide security in theregion."The operation appeared to have unfolded quickly and endedwith what some described as a dangerous raid, a shootout and acaptor's final, terrifying threat to "kill the hostage."Boyle told his parents that he, his wife and theirchildren were intercepted by Pakistani forces while beingtransported in the back or trunk of their captors' car andthat some of his captors were killed. He suffered only ashrapnel wound, his family said.
US officials did not confirm those details.
A US military official said that a military hostage teamhad flown to Pakistan Wednesday prepared to fly the familyout. The team did a preliminary health assessment and had atransport plane ready to go, but sometime after daybreakThursday, as the family members were walking to the plane,Boyle said he did not want to board, the official said.
Boyle's father said his son did not want to board theplane because it was headed to Bagram Air Base and the familywanted to return directly to North America. Another USofficial said Boyle was nervous about being in "custody" givenhis family ties.
He was once married to Zaynab Khadr, the older sister offormer Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr and the daughter ofa senior al-Qaida financier. Her father, the late Ahmed SaidKhadr, and the family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly whenOmar Khadr was a boy.
The Canadian-born Omar Khadr was 15 when he was capturedby US troops following a firefight and was taken to the USdetention center at Guantanamo Bay.
Officials had discounted any link between that backgroundand Boyle's capture, with one official describing it in 2014as a "horrible coincidence."The US Justice Department said neither Boyle nor Colemanis wanted for any federal crime.
US officials call the Haqqani group a terroristorganization 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 typicallyexecute Western hostages, preferring to ransom them for cash.
The Haqqani network had previously demanded the releaseof Anas Haqqani, a son of the founder of the group, inexchange for turning over the American-Canadian family.
In one of the videos released by their captors, Boyleimplored the Afghan government not to execute Talibanprisoners, or he and his wife would be killed.
US officials have said that several other Americans arebeing held by militant groups in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
They include Kevin King, 60, a teacher at the AmericanUniversity of Afghanistan in Kabul who was abducted in August2016, and Paul Overby, an author in his 70s who had traveledto the region several times but disappeared in easternAfghanistan in mid-2014. (AP)CHT.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.