Captured son’s dad asks Pakistan help

BOISE – The father of the only U.S. soldier held captive in the Afghan war appealed to the Pakistani military for help in freeing his son in a video posted on YouTube on Friday.

The parents of Spc. Bowe Bergdahl have declined to say much publicly since their son went missing from his base in southern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. While it’s unclear where the 25-year-old soldier is being held, a video released on the Internet earlier this week shows him standing next to a senior official in the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network in Paktika province in Afghanistan.

In Friday’s video, Idaho resident Bob Bergdahl urges members of the Pakistani military to help secure his son’s release. He directly references Pakistan army chief of staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of the country’s intelligence service.

“Our family is counting on your professional integrity and your honor to secure the safe return of our son,” he said. “And we thank you. Our family knows the high price that has been paid by your men in the army and the frontier corps. We give our condolences and thanks to the families of those who have fallen for Pakistan.”

Idaho National Guard spokesman Col. Tim Marsano, a liaison for the U.S. Army in Idaho, confirmed that Bob Bergdahl is the man in the video.

Wearing a long beard he began growing just after his son’s capture, Bob Bergdahl speaks in both English and Arabic in the video.