KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban on Wednesday released a video showing the handover of Sgt. BoweBergdahl to U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, touting the swap of the American soldier for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo as a significant achievement for the insurgents.
The 17-minute video, emailed to media, shows the moment of Bergdahl’s handover. He was freed on Saturday after five years in captivity, and exchanged for the five Guantanamo detainees who were flown to Qatar, a tiny Gulf Arab country which has served as a mediator in the negotiations for the swap.
Since his release, the 28-year-old from Hailey, Idaho, was reported to be in stable condition at a military hospital in Germany.
The Taliban video shows Bergdahl in traditional Afghan clothing, the white salwar kameez, clean-shaven and sitting in a white pickup truck parked on a hillside. More than a dozen Taliban fighters with machineguns, their faces mostly covered by headscarves, stand around the truck and on the hillside.
Bergdahl is seen blinking frequently as he looks out of the truck and appears to be listening as his captors speak to him. A Black Hawk helicopter then lands and two Taliban fighters, one carrying a white piece of cloth tied to a stick of wood, lead Bergdahl half the way toward the helicopter, a few hundred meters (yards) away.
Bergdahl is then greeted and taken by three Western-looking men in civilian clothes to the helicopter, where soldiers in Army uniforms are waiting and help him board the Black Hawk.
According to a voiceover in the video, the handover took place around 4 p.m. Saturday in the area of Bati in Ali Sher district of eastern Khost province. As the helicopter approaches, one of the Taliban men gets closer toBergdahl and is heard speaking in Pashto, one of two main Afghan languages.
“Don’t come back to Afghanistan,” the man tells Bergdahl. “You won’t make it out alive next time,” he adds as some of the others are heard laughing. The same words appear over the video in English, with misspellings.
Just before the helicopter lands, a group of Taliban near the pickup shout: “Long life to Mujahedeen,” or holy warriors as the Taliban call themselves.
A Taliban statement, also distributed to media, quoted their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar describing the release of the five Taliban officials from Guantanamo as a significant achievement for the movement.
U.S. Defense Department press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said the Pentagon was reviewing the video even though it had no reason to doubt its authenticity.
“Regardless, we know the transfer was peaceful and successful, and our focus remains on getting Sgt.Bergdahl the care he needs,” Kirby said Wednesday.
The five Taliban officials’ release was conditioned on assurances from officials in Qatar, where they will have to stay for one year, that they will track them and allow the U.S. to monitor them.
But even as Bergdahl’s hometown celebrates his release, the Army is contemplating pursuing an investigation that could lead to desertion or other charges against him.
The Pentagon concluded in 2010 that Bergdahl had walked away from his unit before he was captured by the Taliban. Members of Bergdahl’s unit and military officials have complained that his decision to leave his base unarmed put his fellow soldiers in danger and that some were killed in missions that included looking for him.
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AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
“Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that “he had the duty to bring those Americans home,” and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan’s campaign promise never to do so.”
“…You won’t make it out alive next time…”
Capturing American soldiers and trading them is not their strategy. Perhaps it’s unfair to expect chickenhawk Republican bureaucrats to understand that.
in light of the screeching hoohaw re bergdahl, i would like to make the point that someone in the pentagon dropped the fucking ball bigtime. presumably they were aware of the circumstances of his disappearance if anyone was – were these concerns forwarded to the white house.
CBS obscures Special Forces faces in POW trade-off footage but Today Show doesn’t thus blowing cover for the 3 operatives shown.
Today also interviewed the mother of a deceased soldier allegedly killed “while hunting for Bergdahl”. She said wrinkling her nose, “He’s (Bergdahl) getting the royal treatment while my son came home in the luggage compartment of a plane” as if her dead son was somehow dishonored by his military flight from the war zone.
This fake scandal will really hurt military recruiting…
You don’t want to be captured alive by them. God only knows what he went through; he looks completely broken in the video. There’s others where he’s pleading to be freed that I just don’t want to see.