The Taliban has released a 28-minute video showing a US occupation soldier reportedly captured by the movement in Afghanistan last month, officials and witnesses said Sunday.
The clip released over the weekend shows a Western male -- purportedly a US soldier who went missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan on June 30 -- sitting cross-legged on the floor wearing a traditional Afghan outfit. The shaven-headed young man, who sports a small beard and appears nervous and frightened, answers questions in English while drinking green tea.
Although the Pentagon has not released the identity of the missing soldier, a US military spokesman in Kabul confirmed that the man appearing in the video is the soldier who went missing late last month. "I was captured outside of the base camp. I was behind a patrol, lagging behind the patrol and I was captured," the soldier tells an unseen questioner.
Asked about the US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government in 2001, the man replies: "Since I've been here and I've seen how these people live and function, we have indeed invaded an independent state." "We're told that civilian casualties that soldiers like myself inflict on populous are simply something that we have to accept in a time of war and that we're told that they don't matter," the soldier adds.
The Kabul-based US military spokesman labeled the footage "propaganda." "The US military condemns the release of this video by rebels," the military spokesman who requested anonymity told AFP. "They're exploiting the soldier for their own propaganda. US and coalition forces are doing everything they can to recover the soldier and get him back unharmed. The Taliban are using it as a propaganda tool," he added.
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