TORONTO -- Former hostage Joshua Boyle said Saturday from his parents' home in Canada that full medical exams were being arranged for him and his family after they were rescued from their captors, the Taliban-linked extremist Haqqani network in Afghanistan.
And in a video released by Pakistan's military that was filmed before he left the country and returned to Canada, Boyle recounted a harrowing firefight during a raid by Pakistani security forces that freed the family.
"A major comes over to me while I still have blood on me. The street is chaos and he says to me, 'In the American media they say that we support the Haqqani network and that we make it possible. Today you have seen the truth. Did we not put bullets in those bastards?'" Boyle recalled, appearing beside his wife and children in the video.
"And so I can say to you I did see the truth, and the truth was that car was riddled with bullets. The [Pakistan intelligence agency] and the army got between the criminals and the car to make sure the prisoners were safe and my family was safe. They put them to flight, and they ran like cowards. This is proof enough to me the Pakistanis are doing everything to their utmost."
The circumstances under which the video was recorded were not immediately clear.
Boyle; his American wife, Caitlan Coleman; and their three children were rescued Wednesday, five years after the couple was abducted in Afghanistan while on a backpacking trip. Boyle said the kids, who were born in captivity, were adjusting to a new reality after growing up amid a group of "pagan" bandits.
"These are children who three days ago they did not know what a toilet looks like. They used a bucket," Boyle said in the video. "Three days ago they did not know what a light is or what a door is except that it is a metal thing that is locked in their face to make them a prisoner.
"And now they are seeing houses, they are seeing food, they are seeing gifts. All of this," he continued. "They are doing very well."
Coleman was pregnant at the time of their abduction and ultimately gave birth to four children while in captivity. Boyle said after landing at Toronto's airport that the extremists killed their newborn daughter and raped his wife during the years they were held. He called on the Afghan government to bring the captors to justice, saying, "God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network."
The birth of the fourth child had not been publicly known until then.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nafees Zakaria, said the raid that led to the rescue was based on a tip from U.S. intelligence and shows that Pakistan will act against a "common enemy" when Washington shares information.
U.S. officials have long accused Pakistan of ignoring groups like the Haqqani network.
After arriving at his parents' home in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Boyle emailed The Associated Press a statement saying they had "reached the first true 'home' that the children have ever known -- after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house hopefully."
"Our daughter has had a cursory medical exam last night, and hospital staff were enthusiastically insistent that her chances seemed miraculously high based on a quick physical. Full medical work-ups for each member of my family are being arranged right now, and God-willing the healing process -- physically and mentally can begin."
Earlier, on a flight from London, Coleman, who is from Stewartstown, Pa., sat in the business-class cabin wearing a tan headscarf.
She nodded wordlessly as she confirmed her identity to an AP reporter on board. Next to her were her two elder children. In the seat beyond that was Boyle, with their youngest in his lap. U.S. State Department officials accompanied them.
Boyle provided a separate, handwritten statement then expressing disagreement with U.S. foreign policy.
"God has given me and my family unparalleled resilience and determination, and to allow that to stagnate, to pursue personal pleasure or comfort while there is still deliberate and organized injustice in the world would be a betrayal of all I believe, and tantamount to sacrilege," he wrote.
He nodded toward one of the State Department officials and said, "Their interests are not my interests."
Washington considers the Haqqani group a terrorist organization and has targeted its leaders with drone strikes. But the Haqqani group also operates like a criminal network. Unlike the Islamic State group, it typically does not execute Western hostages, preferring to hold them for ransom.
A U.S. national security official, who was not authorized to discuss operational details of the release and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. obtained actionable information, passed it to Pakistani officials, asked them to interdict and rescue the hostages -- and they did.
President Donald Trump, who previously had warned Pakistan to stop harboring militants, praised the country for its "cooperation on many fronts." He said Friday on Twitter that the U.S. is starting to develop "a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders."
Information for this article was contributed by Martin Benedyk, Jill Colvin, Deb Riechmann, Matthew Lee, Jon Gambrell, Patrick Lejtenyi and Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press.
A Section on 10/15/2017