Kabul, July 19 (DPA) An American soldier, who went missing in eastern Afghanistan late last month, has appeared on a video posted at a website by Taliban, pleading to his countrymen to force the US government to pull out its troops from Afghanistan.
A US military spokeswoman in Afghanistan confirmed that the man in the video was the missing US soldier and said that the military was doing every possible thing to secure his release.
In the 28-minute video, which is the first sign of life from the missing soldier, the soldier is shown with his head shaved and wearing a grey Afghan traditional outfit.
“I have my girlfriend who is hoping to marry,” the soldier said in a sober voice while sitting cross-legged and looking down in the video.
“I have my grandma and grandpas. I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America. I am afraid that I might not ever see them again,” he said in the video, portions of which were available on YouTube.com, an internet video sharing site.
Asked by one of his captors if he had any message to his people, the captured soldier said: “Yes to my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it’s like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home.
“Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country,” he said, adding: “Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power.”
The captor, who interviewed the soldier, was not seen in the video and was speaking in strong English accent.
A US military spokeswoman in Afghanistan, Elizabeth Mathias denounced the release of video and said “exploiting of a soldier is against the international law”.
She said that the military had been conducting a search operation in the area and had distributed and air-dropped two kinds of leaflets in the eastern region, seeking the soldier’s release.
In one type of leaflets, the military warned the captors to free the hostage or face consequences, while rewards were promised for the local people in the area with any information about the whereabouts of the soldier in other leaflets, she said, but did not disclose the size of the rewards.
The soldier is believed to be the first American military service member to have been captured in Afghanistan since 2002, following the ouster of Taliban regime.