Boy, 4, born into Taliban captivity after parents were taken hostage ‘thinks everything is wonderland’ as he plays for first time at Canadian home
Jonah and his father Joshua Boyle were pictured playing in the garden of the boy's grandparents home in Canada for the first time.
A BOY who was born into captivity after his parents were taken hostage by terrorists has been pictured running around his family's garden for the first time.
Jonah and his father Joshua Boyle were spotted running in the grass and examining flowers at the home of the boy's grandparents in Ontario, Canada.
It is the first time the young lad has tasted the freedom of home having spent his entire life so far as a prisoner of the Haqqani network, which has close links to the Taliban.
Speaking to , Joshua said: "We have reached the first true home that the children have ever known, after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house."
He said of his eldest child, whose full name is Najaeshi Jonah: "[He] is exuberant; honestly freedom seems to have cured half his ills instantly, he's running around examining all the gifts compiled over the years."
Joshua added: "Najaeshi Jonah is examining Post-it notes and curtains and paints and board games, remote controls, everything in the house is a wonderland to him."
Canadian Joshua and American Caitlan Coleman, were kidnapped five years ago after going on a backpacking trip through Afghanistan.
They have two younger children: a two-year-old son named Dhakwoen Noah and a two-month-old daughter.
The couple and their three children were freed this week after a daring raid by Pakistani troops with the help of the US intelligence services.
In a statement delivered to the press, Joshua revealed that guards raped his wife and murdered his baby during their brutal five-year ordeal.
Boyle, 34, gave a statement shortly after the family landed in Canada on Friday having been brought home by the US military.
He said: "Obviously, it will be of incredible importance to my family that we are able to build a secure sanctuary for our three surviving children to call a home.
"The stupidity and the evil of the Haqqani network in the kidnapping of a pilgrim... was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorising the murder of my infant daughter.
"And the stupidity and evil of the subsequent rape of my wife, not as a lone action, but by one guard, but assisted by the captain of the guard and supervised by the commandant."
He did not elaborate on what he meant by "pilgrim", or on the murder or rape. Coleman was not at the news conference.
Boyle said the Taliban had carried out an investigation last year and conceded that the crimes against his family were perpetrated by the Haqqani network.
He called on the Taliban "to provide my family with the justice we are owed.
";God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network."
Pakistani troops rescued the family in the northwest of the country, near the Afghan border, this week.
The United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight the Taliban-allied Haqqani network.
Ms Coleman - who was pregnant when she was snatched and had three children while in captivity - had previously suggested she was raped and had miscarriages while being held.
An operation was launched after a tip-off from US spies that the family had been moved across the frontier on Wednesday.
The rescue operation “from terrorist custody” took place in the Kirram tribal badlands and involved special forces from the Pakistan army and crack US troops.
Earlier this week a White House official hailed the rescue as a "positive moment for our country's relationship with Pakistan".
Donald Trump said: "The Pakistani government's co-operation is a sign that it is honouring America's wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region.
"We hope to see this type of co-operation and teamwork in helping secure the release of remaining hostages and in our future joint counter-terrorism operations."
Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, drove home the dire conditions the family had been subjected to during their long captivity.
"They've been essentially living in a hole for five years," Kelly said. "That's the kind of people we're dealing with over there."
The rescue is understood to have involved a tense handover in which terror troops were not engaged in battle.
Video footage of the family last appeared in December 2016 when they appealed to their governments to listen to demands to swap them for Haqqani prisoners.
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