Taliban threaten to kill US soldier
KABUL - Local Taliban commanders threatened yesterday to kill a captured American soldier unless the US military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.
Also yesterday, Canadian authorities announced that a Canadian soldier was killed southwest of Kandahar, bringing to 47 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this month. That makes July the deadliest month of the war for foreign troops.
The Taliban claimed last week to be holding the American soldier, whom the US military earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands.
Abdullah Jalali, a spokesman for Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview yesterday that the soldier was healthy.
He said the soldier would be killed unless the US stops air strikes in Ghazni Province’s Giro district and Paktika Province’s Khoshamand district. Jalali did not explain why the Taliban chose those areas.
Spokeswoman Captain Elizabeth Mathias declined to comment on the demands.
Neither district is in Helmand Province, where Marines are conducting the largest US military operation in Afghanistan since the Taliban were toppled from power in 2001.
Jalali said the final decision about the soldier’s fate will be made by Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
The US military has said the soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on June 30 and was “believed captured.’’
The Taliban claimed on their website on July 6 that they were holding the soldier.
