Man rescued from Taliban after five years didn't believe Trump was President

A Canadian man who was rescued in Pakistan last week after 5 years in captivity reportedly did not believe his kidnappers when they told him Donald Trump was President of the United States. 

Although it’s hard to imagine that a terrorist group linked to the Taliban would be big on cracking jokes, Joshua Boyle told the Toronto Star that it “didn’t even enter [his] mind that they were being serious”.

Boyle and his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, were kidnapped by the Haqqani network- whose leader is the deputy head of the Afghan Taliban - in 2012 whilst travelling in Afghanistan. Coleman was pregnant at the time, and the two were rescued with their three young children, all of whom were born in captivity.

The couple were rarely given any information on the outside world during their time in captivity, only finding out Justin Trudeau was prime minister of Canada after their rescue. The information regarding the Trump presidency was given to Boyle by one of the captors for use in a “proof-of-life” video, although at the time he believed it to be a joke.

The family was rescued last week by Pakistani forces after a dramatic car chase near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border which saw all the captors in the car killed.

They are now trying to adjust back to normal life in Canada.

“Obviously it will be of incredible importance to my family that we are able to build a secure sanctuary for our three surviving children to call a home”, Boyle said in a statement after arriving in Toronto, “to focus on edification and to try to regain some portion of the childhood that they have lost”.

To be fair to the man, most of us living in the normal world and with access to 24 hour news still can’t believe it’s not a joke either.

(Images: Rex)