After holding soldiers and foreign nationals captive, the Taliban has turned to capturing military canine. The terrorist organisation released a video Wednesday claiming to have seized a U.S. army dog.
According to the insurgents, the dog was captured late December during a U.S. operation in Alingar district, eastern Afghanistan, last year. The video, posted on their website, shows the dog confused rather than terrorized, surrounded by five gunmen holding grenades. The canine wags its tail as the rebels shout, "Allah hu Akbar" (God is great).
The narrator of the video said three guns, one pistol and other tools that included a GPS and a torch were confiscated from the dog, reports the Agence France-Presse. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told AFP Thursday, "The Americans conducted an operation on the positions of Mujahideen in Alingar district (of Laghman province). The Mujahideen put up fierce resistance and repelled the attack...The Mujahideen seized some weapons and also a dog which we later learnt the Americans called 'Colonel'." He assured that the dog was fine but the future course will be decided later.
The dog was of "high significance" to the US, the Mujahid told The Washington Post.
However, the US military said the dog did not belong to them and was of British army. U.S. military sources told BBC the dog belonged to a coalition partner and it was working for British forces.
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul confirmed that a military dog had gone missing. "We can confirm that a military working dog went missing following an ISAF mission in December, 2013. It is ISAF policy to defer identification to the appropriate national authorities," the ISAF spokesman told AFP. "Military working dogs are used for several purposes, primarily for explosives or drug detection," he said.
