KABUL — Local Taliban commanders threatened Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.
Also Thursday, Canadian authorities announced that a Canadian soldier was killed southwest of Kandahar, bringing to 47 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this month.
The Taliban claimed last week to be holding the American soldier. Abdullah Jalali, a spokesman for Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin, said Thursday that the soldier was healthy. He said the soldier would be killed unless the U.S. stops airstrikes in Ghazni province’s Giro district and Paktika province’s Khoshamand district.
Neither district is in Helmand province, where Marines are conducting the largest U.S. military operation in Afghanistan since the Taliban was toppled from power in 2001. The Associated Press
