Canadian Rescued From Taliban Thought Trump Presidency Was Kidnapper’s Joke

A Canadian recently freed after five years of being held by the Taliban said that he thought his captors were playing a joke on him by telling him that Donald Trump was the US president.

Last week, on Oct 11, Joshua Boyle, 34, Caitlan Coleman, 31, and their three young children—one not even a year old—were rescued from the Taliban after five years in captivity. The family was freed in a mission pulled off by Pakistani troops and intelligence agencies who were working off a tip from the United States. The mission saw the Boyles in the trunk of the car as Pakistani forces entered into a shootout with their kidnappers.

While being held, the family wasn't supplied with any news of the outside world. So, last time the family had heard of the now leader of the free world, he was still simply a reality TV star. Boyle, speaking with the Toronto Star's Michelle Shephard, said that before he was asked to do a "proof-of-life" video he was told that Donald Trump was president.

"It didn't enter my mind that [my captor] was being serious," he told Shephard.

Boyle and his wife Caitlan Coleman spent nearly five years in captivity after being kidnapped during a hiking trip in Afghanistan's Ghazni province. At the time of their kidnapping, Coleman was five months pregnant and gave birth in captivity—which she would do several more times.

Boyle—who was previously married to Zaynab Khadr, the sister of Omar Khadr, a controversial figure who was held in Guantanamo Bay, and daughter of Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed in a shootout with Pakistani forces in 2003—told the Star that they were in the area to help people suffering at the hand of the Taliban and has pushed back to people suspicious of his reason for being in the country.

During their time with the Taliban, the Boyles suffered immensely. In the Star article, Joshua Boyle stated that his wife was raped, the family was forced to live in tiny cells underground, and the killing of a daughter—the Taliban has refuted these claims saying Coleman suffered a "natural miscarriage." In a video released by the Pakistani military, Boyle said that this was the first time some of his children had ever seen daylight.

"These are children who three days ago they did know what a toilet looks like. They used a bucket. 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."

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