Freed Taliban hostage says kidnappers killed his daughter, raped his wife

Caitlan Coleman, an American citizen, and her husband, Joshua Boyle, a Canadian citizen, in Taliban captivity with their children
(Image credit: Taliban Media/The Associated Press)

The Canadian-American family freed this week from a five-year captivity in Afghanistan spoke to reporters about their ordeal upon arriving in Toronto Friday night. Joshua Boyle, a Canadian citizen, said the Taliban raped his wife, Caitlan Coleman, an American, and killed their baby.

"The stupidity and the evil of the Haqqani network's kidnapping of a pilgrim and his heavily pregnant wife engaged in helping ordinary villagers in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter, Martyr Boyle," he said. The Haqqani network is an insurgent group with Taliban ties. Boyle suggested the murder and rape occurred in 2014, the former a retaliation for his refusal to comply with the terrorists' demands.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.