The Psychological Ordeals of Hostages: American Hostage Caitlan Coleman Endured Rape, Murder of her Child and a Terrifying Rescue—to What Outcome?

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D.

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U.S. officials announced this week that American hostage, Caitlan Coleman of Pennsylvania, 31, her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, 34, and their three children had been released after being abducted five years ago by a Pakistani linked terrorist group while hiking through Afghanistan.[1] What do hostages normally suffer when taken by terrorist groups, and what is their psychological aftermath once freed?

Each hostage situation is different in terms of the goals of the hostage-taker, as well as the conditions of where, and how long, the hostages are held. Being held captive five years, as Caitlan Coleman’s family were, is an unusually long time. Incidentally, the Haqqani network is the same group that held American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, also for five years.

Most hostages progress in captivity through a range of feelings, beginning with shock and disbelief that gives way to terror, and moves over time into feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, regret, grief, and depression. Alan Johnston, the BBC Journalist held in Gaza in 2005 stated after his release, “It was like being buried alive and removed from the world, in the hands of people who were dangerous and unpredictable.”[2

Among the 800 hostages held for three days by Chechen terrorists in the Moscow Dubrovka Theater in 2002 whom I interviewed, many told me of being in a state of shock when terrorists came storming down from the stage and started yelling that it was a hostage-taking event. They mistakenly considered it a special effect of the play.[3] The Beslan hostages I interviewed after that event expressed the same—total shock and disbelief when armed terrorists came running into the courtyard during the commencement of the school year that was being celebrated by students, teachers and families. Without thinking to fight back, the men allowed themselves to be herded into the school. Aslan, one of the men who escaped, rather than be executed, ran to safety while eluding gunfire by jumping out of a two-story window.. Looking back, he stated that if the men had understood what was happening at the beginning of the siege, they would have fought back—and possibly stopped the hostage-taking—as there were enough of them, but none of them understood until it was too late.[4] Most of the men in the Beslan hostage-taking scenario were executed. If any had survived, the 9-11 hijacked airplane passengers, perhaps, might have said the same.

Hostages typically experience repeated episodes of extreme terror as they suffer under the brutality of their hostage-takers. Rapes, beatings, fake and real executions, torture, verbal abuse, and the deprivations of captivity all create overwhelming negative emotions. When the human mind is overwhelmed with terror and inescapability, it is normal for a captive to become dissociative, as in when cognitive and emotional functions drop out. Sometimes, the hostage will fail to lay down memories and have amnesia for what happened when highly terrified and will not be able to recover memories until in safety, or not at all—forever having blank spots for things that were terrifying and emotionally overwhelming.

Hostages often state that their captivity was punctuated with bursts of overwhelming terror otherwise ruled by unremitting boredom. When hostages are held alone and deprived from sensory stimulation, they may begin to hallucinate as a means of the mind filling in the blanks. This, alongside the emotional pain of isolation and losing track of time, can create feelings of fear of losing one’s mind. Many hostages state that it was very important to figure out how to communicate with other hostages held nearby and to mark time—often by scratching marks on their prison walls. Hostages state that the ambiguity of not knowing when they will be freed creates deeper distress than having a set date in mind as the end of one’s ordeal.

Hostages are taken for many reasons, but in the case of terrorists, they generally try to instill fear in a larger population by victimizing their citizens, exhort money or demand political concessions from their government, or simply make a horrifying statement about their ability to take captives and do as they wish with them. Their decision to publicly take hostages is usually motivated by money and demands for personal safety and safe passage to another country. In addition, in the case of terrorism, hostages may be used as a leverage in political negotiations, such as in gaining the release of prisoners, demanding to repeal certain policies or laws, or demanding withdrawal of foreign troops—to just name a few. Terrorist goals may also include destabilizing the target government of their attack by demonstrating the weakness of the government in the face of a hostage-taking. Likewise, given that hostage-takings, particularly of women and children, or mass hostage-takings, capture press headlines, terrorists gain the much-needed oxygen for their cause—publicity. Often, hostage-takers use this publicity to garner support within their constituency by showing their action and devotion to the cause—to drum up recruitment and fundraising—while also attempting to humiliate the government whose hostages have been taken.

Governments of some countries pay for the release of hostages while others do not. In the case of Caitlan Coleman and her husband, Joshua Boyle, they were subject to American and Canadian laws, which proscribe the payment of ransom to terrorist organizations. Terrorists do not always understand the intricacies and legalities of paying ransoms. They terrify their hostages in efforts to exhort ransoms from them or demand them to make publicly released statements on video requesting ransoms to be paid.

On December 2016, Coleman, veiled in a black abaya and featured in front of a camera with her husband and two toddlers, appeared to be reading from a script, calling their captivity “the Kafkaesque nightmare in which we find ourselves.” She pleaded on the video to President Obama, “Please don’t become the next Jimmy Carter. Just give the offenders something so they and you can save face and we can leave the region permanently.” Addressing soon-to-be President Trump, she added, “We ask that you are merciful to their people and God willing they will release us.”[5]

Terrorists often use hostages for strategic communication purposes. For example, in the Nord Ost siege, hostages were given their phones back and were told to call their friends and relatives to come and stage a protest about Chechnya outside the theater on behalf of their loved ones.[6] Sometimes, negotiators or medical personal are allowed into hostage-taking situations, and more brave hostages can relay information at that time to help the special forces understand how the captors and the exits are configured, who is armed, and the level and types of weapons used.

Hostages who are part of the government, work for intelligence, or have symbolic value to the terrorists are often physically abused. They are killed first and suffer anxiety about being discovered. They are wise to destroy evidence that identifies them. In the cases of PFLP plane hijackings, for instance, hostages identified as Jewish were executed one by one while the others were released.

Frustrated by the hostages’ inability to produce a ransom and wanting to exhort the maximum amount from them, terrorists have been known to deliberately but falsely make their hostages believe that their execution is imminent, intricately staging the events to cause maximum terror. Canadian hostage, Amanda Lindhout, was a victim of such mock executions. She was taken to a remote execution site by her Somali captors who held her for fifteen months and made to kneel at gunpoint as she anticipated her last moments of life.[7] James Foley was thought to be so calm before his beheading because he had faced his mock execution many times before.[8]

Citizens of the countries that proscribe the payment of ransom to terrorist organizations can be subjected to beheadings, as the publicity and propaganda value of a beheading is of greater value for the group than holding a hostage for which a ransom will not be collected. Of course, knowing one will not be ransomed can create great anxiety. Likewise, knowing one’s family will have to sell homes or sacrifice to generate a ransom demand also creates guilt and anxiety both during the hostage-taking and later when the freed hostage sees the sacrifices. Amanda Lindhout’s father sold his home to pay her ransom.[9] In some cases, family members trying to collect funds to ransom their loved ones have been told not to do so by their governments, as was claimed by James Foley’s mother.[10] While accepting a posthumous award for his son, Foley’s father said through tears, “I miss my son.” He then went on to describe the joy and pain of talking to the European hostages held with James who had been ransomed by their governments, stating he thought U.S. policies should be rethought.[11]

When hostages try to escape, only some are successful. A woman escaped out the bathroom window during the Nord Ost hostage-taking in Moscow, running to safety as the hostage-takers shot at her.[12] The Beslan father mentioned above also escaped in a similar manner. Others are not so lucky. Amanda Lindhout and her boyfriend escaped only to be recaptured. The results were horrific. Both were chained up, and Amanda was mercilessly gang-raped as a result. [13] In other cases, hostages understand that their captors are planning to kill everyone and would do well to risk trying to overpower their captors or escape immediately, no matter the consequence of failure.

Hostages that are kept with their family members often face harrowing choices. A Beslan woman was offered freedom for her children if she joined the hostage-takers and took up their cause. She refused.[14] Joshua Boyle, just released this week from five years of captivity, said that his infant daughter was murdered and his wife raped “as retaliation for my repeated refusal to accept an offer that the criminal miscreants of the Haqqani Network had made to me.” According to Boyle, his wife, Caitlan Coleman, was raped by a guard.[15] Speaking of it, Boyle referred to the “evil of the subsequent rape of my wife, not as a lone action, but by one guard, but assisted by the captain of the guard and supervised by the commandant.” [16]

Some hostages fall into a distorted attachment behavior during captivity in which they understand that their captor holds their life in the balance and they begin to form strong attachments to their captors. This behavior, referred to as Stockholm Syndrome, is much more likely to occur when hostage-takers isolate and talk to their captives, showing empathy or kindness, frequently interact, and are also terrifying. The combination of terror and kindness creates a “trauma bond. ” In some cases, Stockholm syndrome is strong enough that hostages feel like fighting alongside their captors, or defend them, once freed. The case of the Patty Hearst kidnapping, in which she took up arms and joined her captors, is to this day regarded as a quintessential case of Stockholm Syndrome. Her ordeal, however, began with her being locked in a closet, drugged and raped by her captors.[17]

Once freed, hostages face many challenges. Longer captivities involving familial separations involve stressors and adaptations on both sides of the equation, with time needed both by the hostage and his family to readapt. The hostage may return home traumatized, suffering guilt and regret, and needing support while family members have also suffered anxiety, grief, and having to cope without the hostage, and may possibly even harbor feelings of anger over risky decisions made by the hostage that led to his or her captivity. Coleman’s father, Jim, told journalists he has no immediate plans to go to Canada to see his daughter and son-in-law, explaining, “We want to see how things play out for now…I’m not on the best of terms with my son-in-law, as you can tell.” Upset that Boyle took their heavily pregnant daughter hiking in Afghanistan, he asks, “How would you feel if your seven-month pregnant daughter was put in such a situation?”[18] “Taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place, to me, and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable,” Coleman’s father, said.[19]

At the time they were taken hostage, and even today, some intelligence experts speculate about Boyle and his motives for traveling to Afghanistan, wondering about his brief marriage and divorce from the oldest sister of Omar Khadr, a Canadian arrested in 2002 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and a Guantanamo detainee who was alleged to have ties to al-Qaeda. The Khadr family patriarch was killed in 2003, along with al-Qaeda and Taliban members, in a shootout with Pakistani security forces near the Afghanistan border. Boyle’s associations with the Khadr family led some U.S. intelligence officials to speculate that his visit to Afghanistan may have been to link up with Taliban-affiliated militants. “I can’t say that [he was ever al-Qaeda],” one former intelligence official told journalists, adding, “He was never a fighter on the battlefield. I believe that he clearly was interested in getting into it.”[20]

If these speculations have any truth to them, then they might explain the “offer” from the Haqqani network that Boyle said he refused at great personal cost to himself and his family. There are many yet unanswered questions in their case, including what the offer was that Boyle refused, why he decided after his rescue to refuse a flight to the United States but traveled further to fly home to Canada instead, and why he traveled to Afghanistan in the first place. Interestingly, senior members of the Haqqani network deny the rape, and spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, issued a statement denying that their infant was killed, claiming instead that she fell ill and did not survive without medical care.[21]

Following their capture, Boyle and Coleman appear to have suffered through a multiple harrowing ordeals, from the murder of their infant daughter to Coleman’s rape to what has been alluded to as a forced abortion. [22] Acute and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—having flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, high arousal states, angry outbursts, inability to concentrate, depression, negative feelings, feeling alienated and isolated, and inability to function well—are all normal symptoms and responses to the terrifying ordeal of being held hostage. Without adequate treatment, sufferers of PTSD at times resort to drug and alcohol abuse to try to tone down the arousal states and quiet their flashbacks and nightmares. That said, hostages should also be given time upon their release to come to their own coping mechanisms, as many will find inner strengths to guide them on their own way back into healthy adjustments.

There is also always the question of how best to survive captivity and evade being chosen for execution. It is always a temptation in large hostage-taking events for one to fake a medical reason for release, as women, children, and those with serious medical issues requiring medication or treatment may be released early. However, then there is the issue of survival guilt afterward, with other remaining hostages having been killed or harmed.

While a Stockholm syndrome type attachment to one’s hostage-takers is dangerous, creating a relationship can be life saving, as it’s often hard for terrorists to execute someone to whom they have become attached. A famous case of one hostage saving himself is from the 1975 South Moluccan train hijacking in Holland. When Gerald Vaders, who was held hostage by South Moluccans, was about to be shot, he gave another hostage a detailed message to his family about his sorrow over a foster child, his marriage, and his feelings of having failed them. Hearing the message, the hostage-takers felt pity for Vaders and chose someone else to execute. While this particular case demonstrates the importance of being a good human being in the face of evildoers, hostages often do feel guilty for surviving when others do not.

Hostages are usually not fed well and may be subjected to unsanitary conditions, coupled with extreme terror and brutality. Many of the Nord Ost hostages had to use the orchestra pit as a toilet, and the Beslan hostages were deprived of water for so long that some resorted to drinking their own urine.[23] Once freed, hostages may thus return with symptoms of malnutrition and disease, as well as psychological trauma.

In the case of Caitlan Coleman and her husband, they had four births during their captivity, with one daughter allegedly killed by their hostage-takers. Caitlan was also raped and may have been subjected to a forced abortion.[24] Both the children and Caitlin may have suffered nutritional deficiencies. They may have suffered physical and emotional traumas in childbirth and from their other more harrowing experiences. The Coleman family told their families that they were held the entire time in an underground prison, conditions likely also affecting their physical and emotional health.[25] “They’ve been essentially living in a hole for five years,” White House Chief of Staff John Kelly announced in a news conference immediately after their rescue adding that the family were receiving medical and psychological treatment.[26]

Children taken, or born into, captivity are likely to have developmental issues given they didn’t experience normal childhoods. In the case of Coleman and Boyle, she was pregnant when taken captive and they made the decision to continue having babies given they wanted a large family and she was already 26.[27] Boyle told journalists that his four-year-old son, Najaeshi Jonah has traumatic events burned in memory. He remembers waking up one night with his parents already taken away to masked men with Kalashnikovs picking him up to transport he and his brother to another prison. Fearful of a repeated episode, he now avoids closing his eyes, even terrified to play the childhood game of peek-a-boo.[28] Their two-year-old is according to Boyle “nearly as distressed as he was in prison, it seems everything reminds him of the horrors of prison; cameras are equated to hostage videos, pens are equated to syringes used to drug his parents with ketamine by the guards, slamming doors is associated with cell searches or worse, it seems his healing process has barely begun — so we pray that God will hasten it.” Even their infant, writes Boyle, “seems scared most of the time, but also to have discovered there are more decent people in the world than she knew; her world until last week consisted of two good brothers and two good parents and about 15 guards of increasing fear to her.”[29] Najaeshi Jonah, according to Boyle is “terrified to leave the house, even just to go on the porch…it’s as though he thinks if he ever exits this magical wonderland it will all end….” [30] Boyle emailed The Associated Press a statement saying their family had “reached the first true ‘home’ that the children have ever known – after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house hopefully.”[31]

The family was transported 23 times during their captivity with the final transport ending in a terrifying shoot-out and their rescue. At the time of their rescue by the Pakistani army, Coleman, Boyle and their infant daughter had been forced by their kidnappers into the trunk of a car, with the two boys sitting in the backseat, as they were being transported from Afghanistan to Pakistan.[32] Tipped off by the Americans, the car was stopped by the Pakistani army, and five of their captors were killed in a deadly shoot-out with the Pakistani army. Boyle suffered minor shrapnel wounds. Boyle told his family that the last words he heard from the kidnappers were, “kill the hostages.”[33] This, too, would be a terrifying culmination to captivity. One of their sons was in such a bad health condition that he needed to be force-fed upon his rescue.[34]

In a video posted by the Toronto Star, Boyle’s father Patrick expressed the couple’s “profound thanks for the courageous Pakistani soldiers who risked their lives and got all five out safely in the rescue.”[35] Hostage rescues are often heroic, but some are botched or end in deaths of those they are trying to rescue. For instance, the gas introduced into the Nord Ost theater killed hundreds more hostages than those killed by the terrorists shooting them.[36] One hostage held in Columbia told me that she prayed that her release would be negotiated by ransom rather than the police trying to rescue her, an event she feared would end in her death.

Hostages held together may be a comfort to each other, meaning distress each other when not agreeing on how to respond to captivity. We have yet to learn how Coleman’s marriage and small family fared. We still do not know whether there were recriminations between them over their child being killed and Coleman raped after Boyle’s refusal to meet demands made by the Taliban. In the case of Amanda Lindhout, she and her boyfriend disagreed on whether it was smart to fake conversion to Islam. Amanda “converted” only to find she could not meet her captors’ demands to learn the Koran and prayers and that she was now considered marriageable by the young men holding her hostage.[37] According to a senior Taliban member, the Coleman family also converted, probably to increase their chances of survival.[38]

Journalists are always interested to talk to freed hostages and governments also want to debrief them. That said, sometimes, journalists can re-traumatize hostages. One young mother released early from the Moscow siege, and doing well until she returned to hold a vigil outside the theater, relayed how when members of the press surrounded her and pounded her with questions, she felt again taken a hostage and immediately lost her ability to speak. She suffered a strong stutter for months afterward and spoke haltingly to us as we interviewed her in Moscow.[39]

At present, Caitlan Coleman is with her husband in Canada, although her father told journalists that he hopes their daughter and her family return to the United States and accept a Department of Defense, or another program, to help them get re-acclimated to life outside of captivity, including psychological counseling for their children.[40] Certainly, after all, they have been through a lot.The family members can do with some good counseling and support to adapt back into freedom.

Joshua Boyle told reporters at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport that they were in Afghanistan to help those living under Taliban rule, trying to deliver aid to villagers in a part of the Taliban-controlled region “where no NGO, no aid worker, and no government” had been able to reach when they were kidnapped.[41] Whether that is true remains to be established, but if it was, perhaps, it echos the Russian proverb about those who encounter misfortunes while helping others in that part of the world, “No good deed ever goes unpunished.”

Reference for this article: Speckhard, Anne (October 16, 2017) The Psychological Ordeals of Hostages: American Hostage Caitlan Coleman Endured Rape, Murder of her Child and a Terrifying Rescue—to What Outcome? ICSVE Research Reports.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) where she heads the Breaking the ISIS Brand—Counter Narratives Project in which she and her colleagues have interviewed 63 ISIS defectors, returnees and prisoners, most captured on video. These are then video edited into short clips used to disrupt ISIS’s online and face-to-face recruitment. She is the author of: Talking to Terrorists, Bride of ISIS and coauthor of ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate; Undercover Jihadi; and Warrior Princess. Dr. Speckhard has interviewed nearly 500 terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and many countries in Europe. In 2007, she was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to 20,000 + detainees and 800 juveniles. She is a sought-after counterterrorism experts and has consulted to NATO, OSCE, foreign governments and to the U.S. Senate & House, Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Health & Human Services, CIA and FBI and CNN, BBC, NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, CTV, and in Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, London Times and many other publications. Her publications are found here: https://georgetown.academia.edu/AnneSpeckhardWebsite: https://www.icsve.org Follow @AnneSpeckhard

[1] Cohen, Alan, and Phil Helsel. “Canadian Hostage Freed in Pakistan Says Captors Killed Their Infant.” NBC News (October 14, 2017). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/freed-american-caitlan-coleman-canada-family-says-prayers-answered-n810626.

[2] “Johnston: I’m Going to Stay out of Trouble.” The Guardian (July 4, 2007). https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jul/04/middleeastthemedia.tvnews.

[3] Speckhard, Anne, Nadejda Tarabrina, Valery Krasnov, and Natalia Mufel. “Posttraumatic and Acute Stress Responses in Hostages Held by Suicidal Terrorists in the Takeover of a Moscow Theater. ” Traumatology 11, no. 1 (March, 2005 2005): 3-21.

[4] Speckhard, Anne. Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers and “Martyrs.” McLean, VA: Advances Press, 2012.

[5] Silva, Daniella, and Mushtaq Yusufzai. “Taliban Releases Propaganda Video Showing Kidnapped U.S.-Canadian Couple, Children.” NBC News (December 20, 2016). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-releases-propaganda-video-showing-kidnapped-u-s-canadian-couple-n698506.

[6] Speckhard, Anne, Nadejda Tarabrina, Valery Krasnov, and Natalia Mufel. “Stockholm Effects and Psychological Responses to Captivity in Hostages Held by Suicidal Terrorists.” Traumatology 11, no. 2 (2005).

[7] Lindhout, Amanda, and Sara Corbett. A House in the Sky: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2013.

[8] “Captives Are So Calm Because They’ve Been through So Many Mock Executions That They Still Do Not Know They Are About to Die, Reveals Former Hostage.” Mail Online (September 16, 2014). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2757201/Calm-captives-not-know-die-reveals-French-war-reporter-held-ISIS.html#ixzz4vbvCKJDu.

[9] Lindhout, Amanda, and Sara Corbett. A House in the Sky: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2013.

[10] Ross, Brian, James Gordon Meek, and Rhonda Schwartz. “‘So Little Compassion’: James Foley’s Parents Say Officials Threatened Family over Ransom.” ABC News (September 12, 2014). http://abcnews.go.com/International/government-threatened-foley-family-ransom-payments-mother-slain/story?id=25453963.

[11] John Foley (October 23, 2014) Speaking at Oxi Day Celebrations in Washington, D.C.

[12] Speckhard, Anne, Nadejda Tarabrina, Valery Krasnov, and Natalia Mufel. “Stockholm Effects and Psychological Responses to Captivity in Hostages Held by Suicidal Terrorists.” Traumatology 11, no. 2 (2005).

[13] Lindhout, Amanda, and Sara Corbett. A House in the Sky: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2013.

[14] Speckhard, Anne. Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers and “Martyrs”. McLean, VA: Advances Press, 2012.

[15] Cohen, Alan, and Phil Helsel. “Canadian Hostage Freed in Pakistan Says Captors Killed Their Infant.” NBC News (October 14, 2017). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/freed-american-caitlan-coleman-canada-family-says-prayers-answered-n810626.

[16] Guly, Christopher, and Rob Crilly. “Canadian Hostage Reveals Captors Murdered His Daughter and Raped His Wife During Afghan Kidnapping.” The Telegraph (October 14, 2017). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/14/parents-freed-hostage-angry-son-in-law-taking-pregnant-wife/.

[17] Flanagan, Caitlin. “Girl Interrupted.” the Altantic (September 2008). https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/09/girl-interrupted/306934/.

[18] Cohen, Alan, and Phil Helsel. “Canadian Hostage Freed in Pakistan Says Captors Killed Their Infant.” NBC News (October 14, 2017). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/freed-american-caitlan-coleman-canada-family-says-prayers-answered-n810626.

[19] Guly, Christopher, and Rob Crilly. “Canadian Hostage Reveals Captors Murdered His Daughter and Raped His Wife During Afghan Kidnapping.” The Telegraph (October 14, 2017). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/14/parents-freed-hostage-angry-son-in-law-taking-pregnant-wife/.

[20] Jaffe, Greg. “Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle Are Free. Their Mysterious Story Is Raising New Questions.” The Washington Post (October 13, 2017). https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/caitlan-coleman-and-joshua-boyle-are-free-their-mysterious-story-is-raising-new-questions/2017/10/13/7e654ea8-b045-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.b602cd14200c.

[21] Cohen, Alan, and Phil Helsel. “Canadian Hostage Freed in Pakistan Says Captors Killed Their Infant.” NBC News (October 14, 2017). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/freed-american-caitlan-coleman-canada-family-says-prayers-answered-n810626.

[22] Chavez, Nicole, and Keith Allen. “Freed Taliban Hostage Says Captors Raped His Wife, Authorized Child’s Killing.” CNN (October 14, 2017). http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/14/asia/taliban-family-freed-canada-boyle-speaks/index.html.

[23] Speckhard, Anne. Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers and “Martyrs”. McLean, VA: Advances Press, 2012.

[24] Cohen, Alan, and Phil Helsel. “Canadian Hostage Freed in Pakistan Says Captors Killed Their Infant.” NBC News (October 14, 2017). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/freed-american-caitlan-coleman-canada-family-says-prayers-answered-n810626.

[25] Guly, Christopher, and Rob Crilly. “Canadian Hostage Reveals Captors Murdered His Daughter and Raped His Wife During Afghan Kidnapping.” The Telegraph (October 14, 2017). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/14/parents-freed-hostage-angry-son-in-law-taking-pregnant-wife/.

[26] Shephard, Michelle (October 13, 2017) “Kidnapped Canadian-American family freed in Pakistan gun battle after 5 years in captivity.” The Star.

[27] CBCNews. (October 16, 2017). Canadian hostage reveals why couple had kids in captivity. Retrieved from Canadian hostage reveals why couple had kids in captivity

[28] Shephard, M. (October 14, 2017). After a lifetime in captivity, the children of Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman begin to heal. The Star. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/10/14/after-a-lifetime-in-captivity-the-children-of-joshua-boyle-and-caitlan-coleman-begin-to-heal.html

[29] Ormiston, S. (October 14, 2017). Freed hostage Joshua Boyle says children adapting to ‘1st true home’. CBCNews. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/boyle-coleman-former-captives-return-to-canada-1.4355358

[30] Ormiston, S. (October 14, 2017). Freed hostage Joshua Boyle says children adapting to ‘1st true home’. CBCNews. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/boyle-coleman-former-captives-return-to-canada-1.4355358

[31] Gillies, R. (October 16, 2017). Ex hostage tells AP why he had kids in captivity. Associated Press. Retrieved from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-hostage-tells-ap-why-had-kids-captivity-145032811.html

[32] Ormiston, S. (October 14, 2017). Freed hostage Joshua Boyle says children adapting to ‘1st true home’. CBCNews. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/boyle-coleman-former-captives-return-to-canada-1.4355358

[33] Shephard, Michelle (October 13, 2017) “Kidnapped Canadian-American family freed in Pakistan gun battle after 5 years in captivity.” The Star.

[34] Guly, Christopher, and Rob Crilly. “Canadian Hostage Reveals Captors Murdered His Daughter and Raped His Wife During Afghan Kidnapping.” The Independent (October 14, 2017). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/14/parents-freed-hostage-angry-son-in-law-taking-pregnant-wife/.; News, BBC. “Canadian Hostage Joshua Boyle Says Taliban Killed Daughter.” (October 14, 2017). http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41620131.

[35] Guly, Christopher, and Rob Crilly. “Canadian Hostage Reveals Captors Murdered His Daughter and Raped His Wife During Afghan Kidnapping.” The Telegraph (October 14, 2017). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/14/parents-freed-hostage-angry-son-in-law-taking-pregnant-wife/.

[36] Speckhard, Anne, Nadejda Tarabrina, Valery Krasnov, and Natalia Mufel. “Stockholm Effects and Psychological Responses to Captivity in Hostages Held by Suicidal Terrorists.” Traumatology 11, no. 2 (2005).

[37] Lindhout, Amanda, and Sara Corbett. A House in the Sky: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2013.

[38] Silva, Daniella, and Mushtaq Yusufzai. “Taliban Releases Propaganda Video Showing Kidnapped U.S.-Canadian Couple, Children.” NBC News (December 20, 2016). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-releases-propaganda-video-showing-kidnapped-u-s-canadian-couple-n698506.

[39] Speckhard, Anne. Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers and “Martyrs”. McLean, VA: Advances Press, 2012.

[40] Cohen, Alan, and Phil Helsel. “Canadian Hostage Freed in Pakistan Says Captors Killed Their Infant.” NBC News (October 14, 2017). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/freed-american-caitlan-coleman-canada-family-says-prayers-answered-n810626.

[41] News, BBC. “Canadian Hostage Joshua Boyle Says Taliban Killed Daughter.” (October 14, 2017). http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41620131.