The US military denounced on Sunday the release of a video showing a soldier captured in Afghanistan, calling the images Taleban propaganda that violated international law. The video shows the soldier in traditional Afghan dress, being prompted in English by his captors to call for US forces to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. The Defense Department identified the soldier as Idahoan Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, who was serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment. He was serving at a base near the border with Pakistan in an area known to be a Taleban stronghold. In the video, portions of which were posted on YouTube, the soldier appeared with his head shaven and a slight beard, wearing traditional Afghan shalwar kameez clothing. He appears to be in good health and is shown drinking tea and eating bread and rice. “I am scared. I'm scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner,” he says. “I have my girlfriend who is hoping to marry. I have my grandma and grandpas. I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America.” A voice off camera prompts: “Miss them.” The soldier continues: “And I miss them every day that I'm gone. I miss them and I'm afraid that I might never see them again and that I'll never be able to tell them that I love them again. I'll never be able to hug them.” Later, the voice prompts: “Any message to your people?” “Yes. To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them: you have the power to make our government bring them home,” the soldier says. “Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country.” Colonel Julian, the military spokesman, said Washington would not give in to the captors' demands: “Basically they would like us to go home. That is just simply not going to happen. We are here to support the Afghan government to improve security and we will stay as long as the Afghan people want us here.” Mawlavi Sangin, a senior Taleban commander in Paktika province, the southeastern area where the soldier went missing, told Reuters on Thursday his men were holding the soldier and would kill him if the military applied pressure to find him. “We condemn the use of this video and the public humiliation of prisoners. It is against international law,” US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian said. “We are doing everything we can to return this soldier to safety.”
