TORONTO: Rescued Canadian hostage Joshua Boyle Sunday highly lauded the role of Pakistani security forces in the release of his family from the captivity of Taliban and said, “it is a proof enough to me that Pakistanis are doing everything to their utmost” to fight terrorism.
In a statement to Canadian TV and media, Boyle said Pakistani security forces positioned themselves between the hostages and their Haqqani network captors to keep the family safe amid the gunfire.
“A major comes over to me while I still have blood on me. The street is chaotic and he says to me, In the American media they said that we support the Haqqani network and that we make it possible. Today you have seen the truth,” 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 ISI (Pakistan’s 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. And this is proof enough to me the Pakistanis are doing everything to their utmost.”
He said the rescuers were acting on intelligence from the United States indicating the group had been moved to Pakistan. Boyle provided few details of the rescue other than to say it involved gunfire surrounding a car in which the group was travelling.
He said the rescue was the most dramatic example yet of the pattern of reversed expectations.
“When it became clear that there were bullets ripping into the car we assumed this to be very bad but by the grace of God, no, it turns out it was the best thing to happen to us in five years,” he said.
Boyle also revealed that one of their children – called Jonah, Noah and Grace – was in poor health and had to be force-fed by the Pakistani military after their liberation in an operation that was carried out on the back of a tipoff by US intelligence.
“In the last three days I have actually only seen one US soldier and we had to speak very briefly and very cordially about the medical attention that the Pakistani medical team was providing to the injured child,” he said.