The U.S. State Department said it is investigating a video released by Afghan militants that depicts U.S. hostage Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, who were seized four years ago.
Department spokesman John Kirby said on August 30 that the United States is concerned about the welfare of the couple and their family and "continues to urge for their immediate release on humanitarian grounds."
Coleman and Boyle vanished a few days after arriving in Afghanistan while on a backpacking trip near the Pakistani border in 2012. Coleman, who was pregnant at the time, has given birth to two boys while in captivity.
The Daily Beast online newspaper obtained the new video, which depicted Coleman saying her captors were threatening to kill the family if Taliban prisoners were executed in Afghan jails. Coleman in the video pleads for U.S. intervention.
The Daily Beast said the Haqqani network, a Taliban affiliate operating in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, was holding the family captive and made the video and posted it online.
Kabul hanged six Taliban inmates in May.