Humanitarian Failure at Rescue

"We realized that there were civilian hostages in Pakistan that nobody was trying to free so they were added to our mission."
"Warren Weinstein is dead. Colin Rutherford, Joshua Boyle, Caitlan Coleman and the child she bore in captivity are still hostages in Pakistan. I failed them. I exhausted all efforts and resources available to return them, but I failed."
"My team had a difficult mission and I used all legal means available to recover the hostages. You, the Congress, were my last resort. But now I am labeled a whistleblower, a term both radioactive and derogatory. I am before you because I did my duty, and you need to ensure all in uniform can go on doing their duty without fear of reprisal."
Green Beret Lt.-Col. Jason Amerine

Service: A Green Beret, Amerine earned a Bronze Star with Valor for his service in Afghanistan.

"I would ask that my family and my government do everything that they can to bring my husband, child and I to safety and freedom."
Caitlan Coleman, American citizen

"We request from our governments to do what is necessary to bring our families together to safety and freedom."
Joshua Boyle, Canadian citizen

AP Photo/Coleman Family   Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle in a frame grab taken from a video released by their Taliban captors.

"Canada has been pursuing all appropriate channels to seek further information and officials are in close contact with Afghan authorities."
"The Government of Canada will not comment or release any information that may compromise ongoing efforts and that risks endangering the safety of Canadian citizens abroad."
Amy Mills, spokeswoman, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ottawa

Lt.-Col. Amerine was awarded the Bronze Star with "V" and the Purple Heart, considered by the U.S. Army as a "Real Hero". His heroism took place in Afghanistan where he led a Special Forces team in 2001 protecting the future Afghan President Hamid Karzai from the Taliban. Lt.-Col.Amerine was wounded when an American bomb was misdirected that killed three other Special Forces soldiers. And he was tasked in 2013 by the Army to try to figure out how Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, captured in 2009 in Afghanistan could be freed.

Giving prepared testimony before a U.S. Senate hearing on Thursday, he described how he had obtained information about a number of others, both American and Canadian who had been abducted in Afghanistan. They were Canadian citizen Colin Rutherford, American citizen Caitlan Coleman with her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle, and American citizen Warren Weinstein. Caitlan Coleman had given birth while in captivity. She and her husband were captured in 2012, Rutherford in 2010, a tourist in Afghanistan.

Lt.-Col. Amerine described the futility of his team's efforts to free the hostages resulting from the inability of the U.S. government to reach consensus on the manner in which they would deal with hostage situations. Bureaucratic infighting between departments leading to a lack of cooperation between U.S military services and government departments scuttled the entire endeavour, leaving those held as hostages by insurgents in Afghanistan to be moved to Pakistan where their whereabouts are currently unknown.

The Afghan war veteran explained that his attempts to raise awareness of the plight of the detainees and to arrive at a method whereby they might be freed in exchange for satisfying the demands of their captors, led to his becoming a target of retribution. He had been assigned to develop a method to free the hostages through negotiations and not by a risky special forces raid, and he had attempted to satisfy those conditions, developing a plan for the release of all hostages along with two others also in captivity.

The exchange could be effected by the release of Haji Bashir Noorzai, an Afghan drug dealer linked to the Taliban. The man is being held in prison in the United States. The U.S. State Department refused the agreement. The Canadian husband and the American wife with the child, according to her father, might have been trying to join an aid group in Afghanistan. On the other hand, perhaps not, given the fact that Joshua Boyle had previously been married to Zaynab Khadr, sister of Omar Khadr, of the infamous Canadian family close to Osama bin Laden.

Files    Canadian hostage Colin Rutherford

Colin Rutherford, on the other hand, 26, was a traveller, a tourist who had the misfortune to be in the wrong country at the wrong time rather than back home in Toronto. In 2011 the Taliban released a video showing the seasoned traveller in captivity and since then nothing has been heard of his condition nor his whereabouts. As for the unfortunate Mr. Weinstein, an American contractor, abducted in 2011 in Pakistan, a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan targeting the Taliban killed him.


This image made from video released anonymously to reporters in Pakistan on Dec. 26, 2013, shows American aid worker Warren Weinstein. He was held captive in Pakistan until he was mistakenly killed in a U.S. drone strike in January. (AP Photo via AP video)