Pakistan denies Taliban deal in saving Canadian family

Pakistan's army denied on Saturday that the rescue of a Canadian-American couple near the Afghan border was part of a deal with a Taliban group.

Canadian Joshua Boyle, 33, and his American wife Caitlan Coleman, 31, were kidnapped by the Haqqani network, a Taliban group, while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012. The couple had three children during their five years of captivity in the war-torn country, and Coleman suggested that a fourth had been killed by their captors.

The family was rescued in an operation by the Pakistani army on Wednesday. They arrived in Canada late Friday.

On the allegations of a deal, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, a Pakistani army spokesman, told a news conference in garrison city Rawalpindi: "Whenever there is a sign of improvement in Pak-U.S. relations, some forces unleash such baseless propaganda.

"The operation was conducted on the basis of U.S. intelligence agencies, which too had been tracking the [hostages] and shared their shifting across Pakistan with us."

U.S. officials have long accused the Pakistani army of links to the Haqqani network, a charge Pakistan denies.

"If there had been a deal, then it could not be hidden from the U.S agencies, which have openly acknowledged and appreciated the operation," he added.

'US EMBASSY TOLD US'
Ghafoor said the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad informed senior Pakistani army officials on Wednenday that the family was being transferred from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

He added that the troops spotted two vehicles near the Afghan border and cordoned them off to trap the militants.

Ghafoor showed journalists a video showing Boyle thanking Pakistan's army for rescuing him and his family.

The rescue operation took place in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump announcing a new policy for Afghanistan reducing Pakistan's role in the region, accusing it of tolerating terrorist havens.

According to U.S. media, Boyle might face questioning in the United States for allegedly having contacts with a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, Omar Khadr.

Boyle was briefly married to Khadr's sister.