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REMEMBER POW/MIA, SGT Bowe Bergdahl

Bergdahl exchange deemed less likely

U.S troops set to leave Afghanistan

By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

SGT Bowe Bergdahl

An exchange of Taliban prisoners for captured U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl appears less likely today than it was last year.

The New York Times reported on Oct. 2 that hopes for peace talks between the U.S. and Taliban militants, once aimed at ending the 11-year war, have been abandoned.

Peace talks were set last year to take place in Qatar, but abandoned in March by Taliban leaders.

“Military and diplomatic officials here (in Afghanistan) and in Washington said that despite attempts to engage directly with Taliban leaders this year, they now expect that any significant progress will come only after 2014, once the bulk of NATO troops have left,” the Times reported.

According to the Times, almost all of the remaining 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2014.

“‘I don’t see it (peace talks) happening in the next couple years,’ said a senior coalition officer. He and a number of other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the effort to open talks,” reported the Times.

Do Salute, a veterans and soldiers program based in Wisconsin, has gathered more than 400,000 signatures on a petition to raise awareness of Bergdahl, who was captured in Afghanistan on June 6, 2009. Bergdahl’s parents live in Hailey.

Taliban Display U.S. Captive

KABUL — The Taliban distributed a new video Friday of a U.S. soldier who was captured this summer in Afghanistan, with an offer to release him in a prisoner exchange.

A spokesman for the international forces here denounced the video, but declined to comment on the possibility of an exchange or on efforts to rescue the captive.

A video distributed Friday appeared to show Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, above, in a uniform and in clothing characteristic of Kandahar province. AFP/Getty Images

Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, an airborne infantryman from Ketchum, Idaho, was seized by Taliban-aligned militants on June 30. The military says he is the only American soldier who has been captured by insurgent forces during the war here.

The video shows the soldier wearing a military uniform and sunglasses and speaking directly to the camera. He identifies himself and gives his hometown, rank, blood type and mother’s maiden name. He appears healthy and not visibly harmed.

As he speaks there is a graphic on the screen reading, “An American soldier imprisoned by the Mujahedeen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” — the official name of the Taliban organization, which the group says is the legitimate Afghan government.

U.S. soldiers at a Christmas Day prayer service in Nuristan province.

Pfc. Bergdahl criticizes America’s actions overseas, particularly in Muslim countries, and urges the U.S. to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. “This is just going to be the next Vietnam unless the American people stand up and stop all of this nonsense,” he says.

An Afghan voice-over at the end of the video says a “limited number of prisoners” should be exchanged for the captive. It is unclear when the video was made. The Taliban had announced earlier this month that they were planning to issue a video.

This is the first time a demand for a prisoner exchange for Pfc. Bergdahl has been made in a video, but the request has been made in some interviews with Taliban spokesmen. The Taliban emailed a copy of the video to The Wall Street Journal.

“This is a horrible act which exploits a young soldier, who was clearly compelled to read a statement,” U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said in a statement. “It reflects nothing more than the violent, deceitful tactics of the Taliban insurgency.”

Pfc. Bergdahl was 23 years old when he disappeared in late June after leaving his base in eastern Afghanistan. He had last appeared in a Taliban video released in early July, where he urged the U.S. to withdraw its troops. A U.S. government spokesman at the time also said that the statements were made under duress and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Kidnapped U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl

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SGT Bowe Bergdahl: Prisoner of War, Politics and Diplomacy!

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Prisoner of War, SGT Bowe Bergdahl

Bowe Bergdahl, left, appeared without beard despite captors’ claim he has converted to Islam in the latest video released by the Taliban last May

Bowe Bergdahl: Prisoner of war, politics and diplomacy

This analysis was written by Jere Van Dyk, a CBS News terrorism analyst and contributor who has spent three decades studying and reporting on the Islamic militant groups of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(CBS News)May 15, 2012
In June 2009, U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was captured in Paktika Province, eastern Afghanistan, by men loyal to the Haqqani Network, a militant group based across the border in North Waziristan, Pakistan.

The Haqqani network is tied to, but not directly under the control of, Mullah Muhammad Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban.

Bergdahl would have been taken away quickly on narrow paths through steep, rolling mountains and pine forests, through valleys, past small villages, and then down across the unmarked border into Pakistan.

The patriarch of the Haqqani Network is Jalaladin Haqqani, who was a U.S. ally in the 1980s, when America supplied his militants with billions of dollars in weaponry to fight the Soviet Union – then a common enemy which had invaded Afghanistan.

Bergdahl’s parents, afraid of the Taliban, of the drone warfare in the tribal areas, and frustrated because they don’t feel the U.S. is doing enough to try to free their son, have given their first interviews to newspapers, in a move aimed at putting pressure on the Obama administration.

They feel the White House is afraid to make a deal with the kidnappers in an election year, due to pressure from members of Congress and Mr. Obama’s Republican rivals who oppose any negotiation with the Taliban.

Robert Bergdahl, Sgt. Bergdahl’s father, has reached out to the Taliban via the Internet. “You do not leave something like this to government officials,” he told The New York Times.

But his move comes with its own risks.

Negotiations, surveillance and politics
The U.S., non government agencies, and private individuals have quietly been trying to find Sgt. Bergdahl since he disappeared. His plight has been part of the negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban – talks which apparently stalled in March.

I understand Bergdahl’s plight and his family’s fears. In 2008, I was kidnapped by the Taliban. I was hiking in Pakistan’s tribal areas to meet a Taliban leader who said he would take me to meet Haqqani, with whom I had lived as a newspaper reporter in the 1980s.

Taliban hostage, Jere Van Dyk, held for 45 days.

But I was betrayed. I was blindfolded and taken deeper into the mountains, kept with my interpreter and two bodyguards in a small dark room with mud-baked walls. After two weeks a drone appeared overhead and stayed put for a month, 18 hours a day.

After I was released, I asked an F.B.I. agent involved in my case if that drone was there to watch for me or to watch the Taliban. “We brought all assets into play,” he responded.

The U.S., and private organizations, using local spies and by monitoring all cell and satellite phone traffic in the area – and through the use of drones and other technology – probably know the approximate area where Bergdahl is being kept, even if he is being moved around.

The ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, which, according to the U.S., has close ties to the Haqqani Network, probably knows exactly where he is being kept….MORE HERE

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s father, Bob Bergdahl, promises prisoner-of-war son “will come home”

Bob Bergdahl, father of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, who is being held captive in Afghanistan, speaks at the annual Rolling Thunder rally for POW/MIA awareness in Washington May 27, 2012. (AP Photo)

(AP) WASHINGTON – The father of a U.S. soldier who was taken prisoner in Afghanistan thanked the motorcycle riders of Rolling Thunder on Sunday for raising awareness of missing-in-action troops and prisoners of war.

At the annual Rolling Thunder rally on the National Mall, Bob Bergdahl promised his son: “You will come home. We will not leave you behind.”

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 26, of Hailey, Idaho, was taken prisoner in Afghanistan nearly three years ago. He is the subject of a proposed prisoner swap in which the Obama administration would allow the transfer of five Taliban prisoners long held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba…. MORE HERE

Captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl ‘recaptured by the Taliban after three days on the run following daring escape’

By Leon Watson
11 December 2011

A U.S. soldier held by the Taliban since 2009 has been recaptured after he went on the run for three days.
Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s daring escape failed when a manhunt was launched in Pakistan to find him, Taliban commanders said.

He is now facing his third Christmas in captivity.

Sgt Bergdahl has been a prisoner of the Taliban since his capture on June 30, 2009, in Afghanistan.
Since then, he has appeared in a least five Taliban propoganda videos, one of which was released in May.
He is the only known U.S. soldier to be captive of the Taliban…….MORE Here

NOTE: In an attempt to glean more information, I tried to research Jere Van Dyk’s time with the Taliban, but his statements were limited to interviews with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show and the Huffington Post, so I left it! What I do know is that have been instances where journalists have deliberately put themselves in “harm’s way” – not to mention the military with them – to get an inside scoop. I have no proof this was the case with Mr Van Dyk, but he has certainly profited from his 45 day stay. Just sayin …