Post by freebird on Dec 24, 2009 15:39:03 GMT -6
Terror Monitor: Tape of Captured US Soldier Due
Terrorism tracking group: Taliban to release new video of US soldier
captured in Afghanistan
By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer
KABUL December 16, 2009 (AP)
The Taliban have announced they will release a new video of a U.S. soldier
captured in Afghanistan, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring group said
Wednesday.
SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based terrorist tracking organization, said
the media arm of the Afghan Taliban made the announcement Wednesday on their
Web site.
The video is said to be titled, "One of Their People Testified." The Taliban
did not name the American.
The only U.S. soldier known to be in captivity is Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl of
Hailey, Idaho, who disappeared more than five months ago in Afghanistan.
Bergdahl, 23, was captured June 30 in the eastern province of Paktika
province near the Pakistan border. His Taliban captors released a propaganda
video of him about two weeks later. In the July 19 video, Bergdahl appeared
downcast and frightened. No subsequent videos have been released.
U.S. military officials have searched for Bergdahl, but it is not publicly
known whether he is even being held in Afghanistan or neighboring Pakistan.
A spokesman for the Idaho National Guard, Lt. Col. Tim Marsano, confirmed he
notified the parents about the video this morning after learning about it
through news reports.
"They're standing by waiting to see what happens just like everybody else,"
Marsano said.
He said nothing has changed in the parents' approach with media, preferring
to maintain their privacy rather than talk about their son's capture.
"It's been a difficult time for them and their family," he said.
Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling said he talked to the trooper's mother,
Jani Bergdahl, this morning: "I talked to Jani. They're kind of anxiously
wanting to get some kind of information at this point."
Pakistan is off-limits to the thousands of U.S. forces based in Afghanistan.
When militants captured a reporter for The New York Times in a dangerous
region of Afghanistan last year, he was transported to Pakistan and held for
months there. The reporter, David Rohde, eventually escaped.
--
Lynn
Lynn O'Shea
Director of Research
National Alliance of Families
for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen
World War II - Korea - Cold War - Vietnam - Gulf Wars - Afghanistan