Pakistani military officials have described how they rescued a US-Canadian family of Taliban hostages in a dramatic late night ambush on Wednesday.
They say the rescue began with a tip off from US intelligence that suggested Caitlan Coleman, 31, Joshua Boyle, 34, and their three young children were being transported by their Haqqani network captors.
The tip said the family was being moved from Afghanistan into Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas.
At 4pm local time, US officials informed Pakistani intelligence and at 7pm, the family was rescued in Kurram, 165 miles across the border from Kabul where the couple was kidnapped in 2012.
Residents in Kurram said they had seen drones flying above them for days before the rescue. Pakistani officials say they ambushed the vehicle that was transporting the family and shot out its tires to bring it to a sudden halt.
The family was rescued in the Kurram Valley which is 165 miles from Kabul, where they were kidnapped
Reports of whether the captors survived are conflicting. Boyle said they were murdered after saying ‘kill the hostages’.
The family was hiding in the trunk of the car and were removed. They were placed on a Pakistani military helicopter and were taken to the US embassy in Islamabad.
US officials tell a different story and suggest that the family had been in Pakistan for two years before they were rescued.
The discrepancy is significant – the US has accused Pakistan repeatedly of harboring and enabling terrorist networks.
President Trump and his administration has given repeated warnings to its government that the US will not tolerate its apparent leniency on networks such as the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.
It was in Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden hid for years in a secretive compound as he evaded capture after orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.
Pakistani officials say they acted after being told by US agencies that the family was being moved on Wednesday night
The couple were hiking in Kabul, Afghanistan, when they were kidnapped in October 2012
The collaborative effort between the US and Pakistan to rescue Coleman and Boyle however demonstrates a shift in relations between the two countries.
Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, the spokesman for Pakistan’s Armed Forces said of the mission: ‘We sent our troops, traced the vehicle on the basis of intelligence sharing by 1900 hours yesterday (Wednesday) and recovered the hostages.’
He said they planned to intercept the vehicle at a security checkpoint in Kurram but that the terrorists drove it off the road.
They then tried to force it to stop by following it in their own vehicles for a few miles. When they refused, Pakistani troops shot out the tires.
US intelligence officers learned that the family was to be transported to Kurram, a tribal area in Pakistan, in the days before their rescue. Residents there described seeing drones flying above them last week
Unnamed US and Canadian officials however say the family had been in the country for years and that Pakistani officials were aware of their presence there.
‘It means Pakistan could have released them far earlier… But due to the tension with the US they felt it was the right moment,’ one source said.
A senior Taliban commander also denied the military’s account to AFP, saying the militants had released the hostages of their own volition.
The family is now on their way back to Canada via the UK on a commercial flight.
Pakistani troops said they planned to intercept the vehicle at a checkpoint in Kurram but that the captors drove off-road
They refused to board a US military plane, despite America’s role in saving them, and insisted on traveling with Canadian officials instead.
In statement on Thursday, President Trump said: ‘Yesterday, the US Government working in conjunction with the Government of Pakistan, secured the release of the Boyle-Coleman family from captivity in Pakistan.
Today they are free. This is a positive moment for our country’s relationship with Pakistan.
The Pakistani government’s cooperation is a sign that it is honoring America’s wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region.
We hope to see this type of cooperation and teamwork in helping secure the release of remaining hostages and in our future joint counterterrorism operations.