The Latest: Freed hostage says captors ‘ran like cowards’

TORONTO – The Latest on the U.S.-Canadian family rescued from captivity (all times local):

2:00 p.m.

A video clip released by the Pakistani military shows former hostage Joshua Boyle recounting the firefight in which he and his family were rescued after five years in captivity to the Haqqani extremist network.

Boyle says the car they were being transported in was “riddled with bullets” and Pakistani security forces got between them and their captors to make sure the family was safe.

He calls the people that held the family “pagan” and said they “ran like cowards” from the firefight.

Boyle, his wife and their three children were rescued Wednesday, five years after the couple was abducted while in Afghanistan on a backpacking trip.

The video was released and posted online Saturday.

(This item has been corrected to reflect that three children were rescued, not four.)

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9:55 a.m.

Former hostage Joshua Boyle says full medical exams are being arranged for him and his family on their first full day back in Canada after being rescued from their captors in Afghanistan.

Boyle emailed The Associated Press a new statement Saturday morning. He landed in Canada late Friday with his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and three young children.

He wrote they have reached the first true “home” his children have ever known after spending most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport they passed through was their new house.

Boyle says their daughter had a cursory medical exam the previous night and full medical work-ups for each member of my family are being arranged right now.

Boyle earlier said at Toronto’s airport that the Haqqani network in Afghanistan killed his infant daughter and raped his wife while they were held in captivity.

The couple was rescued Wednesday, five years after they were abducted by the Taliban-linked extremist network while in Afghanistan as part of a backpacking trip. Coleman was pregnant at the time and had four children in captivity. The birth of the fourth child had not been publicly known before Boyle appeared before journalists at the Toronto airport.