WASHINGTON (AP) — The family of a pregnant American woman who went missing in Afghanistan in late 2012 with her Canadian husband received two videos last year in which the couple asked the U.S. government to help free them and their child from Taliban captors, The Associated Press has learned.

The videos offer the first and only clues about what happened to Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle after they lost touch with their families 20 months ago while traveling in a mountainous region near the capital, Kabul. U.S. law enforcement officials investigating the couple's disappearance consider the videos authentic but say they hold limited investigative value since it's not clear when or where they were made.

The video files, which were provided to the AP, were emailed to Coleman's father last July and September by an Afghan man who identified himself as having ties to the Taliban but who has been out of contact for several months. In one, a subdued Coleman — dressed in a conservative black garment that covers all but her face— appeals to "my president, Barack Obama" for help.

"I would ask that my family and my government do everything that they can to bring my husband, child and I to safety and freedom," the 28-year-old says in the other recording, talking into a wobbly camera while seated beside her husband, whose beard is long and untrimmed.

Though Coleman mentions a child, no baby is shown in the videos. The families say they have no information about the name or gender of the child, who would be about 18 months old.

The families decided to make the videos public now, in light of the publicity surrounding the weekend rescue of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was freed from Taliban custody in exchange for the release of five high-level Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The families say they are disappointed that their children and grandchild were not freed as part of the same deal but are appealing for help from anyone who can give it, including the couple's captors or the government.

View gallery

This undated handout photo provided by the Coleman family shows Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle. Th …

"It would be no more appropriate to have our government turn their backs on their citizens than to turn their backs on those who serve," Patrick Boyle, a Canadian judge and the father of Joshua Boyle, said in a telephone interview.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf declined Wednesday to discuss specifics of the case because of privacy considerations.

Republicans in Congress have criticized the Bergdahl agreement and complained about not being consulted, though Obama has defended it, citing a "sacred" obligation to not leave men and women in uniform behind. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., asked Obama in a letter this week why other Americans still in the custody of Afghan militants were not included in the negotiation. The families say their children, though without political or military ties to the government, are prisoners just as Bergdahl was and should be recognized as "innocent tourists" and not penalized further for venturing into dangerous territory.

"It's an event that just stands out. I think it cries to out to the world, 'This can't be. These people must be let go immediately," said James Coleman, Coleman's father.

Relatives describe the couple, who met online as teenagers and wed in 2011, as well-intentioned but naive adventure seekers.

View gallery

This undated handout photo provided by the Coleman family shows Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle. Th …

They once spent months traveling through Latin America, where they lived among indigenous Guatemalans and where Boyle grew a long beard that led some children to call him "Santa Claus." The couple set off again in the summer of 2012 for a journey that took them to Russia, the central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then to Afghanistan.

"They really and truly believed that if people were loved and treated with respect that that would be given back to them in kind," said Linda Boyle, Boyle's mother. "So as odd it as it may seem to us that they were there, they truly believed with all their heart that if they treated people properly, they would be treated properly."

With plans to return home in December ahead of Coleman's due date, they checked in regularly via email during their travels — expressing in their writings an awareness of the perils they faced.

The communication abruptly ended on Oct. 8, 2012, after Boyle emailed from an Internet cafe in what he called an "unsafe" part of Afghanistan. The last withdrawals from the couple's bank account were made Oct. 8 and 9 in Kabul. An Afghan official later told the AP that the two had been abducted in Wardak Province, a rugged, mountainous Taliban haven.

New hope emerged last year when an Afghan man who said he had Taliban connections contacted James Coleman, offering first audio recordings and, later, the two email video files. Though the man said the recordings had been provided by the Taliban, he did not reveal what, if anything, the captors wanted and has not been in touch with the Colemans for months.

View gallery

This undated handout photo provided by the Coleman family shows Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle. Th …

Meanwhile, the Boyles and Colemans regularly send letters in an effort to reach their children through a non-governmental organization, but haven't received a response. The Colemans live in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania; the Boyles live outside Ottawa.

The families have not received any ransom demands and there are no clear signs of motive for their being held, but officials say the mere fact they were Westerners in hostile territory may have been reason enough.

Joshua Boyle was previously married to the sister of Omar Khadr, a Canadian man who spent 10 years at Guantanamo Bay after being captured in 2002 in a firefight at an al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan, but U.S. officials discount any link between that previous family tie and his capture. One called it a mere coincidence.

Two U.S. law enforcement officials described the investigation, speaking only on condition of anonymity because the probe is still underway.

The videos, each under two minutes long and featuring the couple seated in spare settings before cloth-draped backgrounds, contain no apparent clues — such as distinctive ethnic music — that might help investigators identify captors or locale. The video files do contain time stamps — one says May 20, 2013, the other Aug. 20, 2013 — but officials say those notations can easily be manipulated.

View gallery

This undated handout photo provided by the Coleman family shows Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle. Th …

U.S. officials say the videos, in their low quality and lack of detail, bear some similarities to those the Taliban released about Bergdahl. They caution that while the videos establish beyond doubt that the couple were captured, they do not qualify as proof of life since there's no mention of current events that could help establish the time.

In addition to calling for government help in the videos, the couple recites names of family members and contact information.

"Just seeing her and seeing her face and hearing her, while it was very difficult, it was also something that relieved a lot of ambiguous anxieties and the fears," said Coleman's mother, Lyn.

Even as they hold out hope, the couples fret for their children's safety and for a grandchild born into captivity in a foreign country.

"We love them," Lyn Coleman said, "and they're needed here. And we need to get them back home."

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Heavily armed gunmen raided four villages in northeast Nigeria leaving scores dead and sending survivors fleeing the attacks blamed on Boko Haram, a local lawmaker and residents said on Wednesday.

The gunmen dressed as soldiers arrived in all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles and attacked Goshe, Attagara, Agapalwa and Aganjara in the Gwoza district of Borno state, late on Tuesday.

"There were deadly attacks on these villages by Boko Haram insurgents who killed a large number of people and destroyed homes," lawmaker Peter Biye, who represents the area in Nigeria's lower chamber of parliament, told AFP.

"We are still trying to compile a toll of the dead as people on the ground are still counting the number of casualties."

Many residents fled across the border into neighbouring Cameroon, as soldiers were deployed to fight the Islamists, who took over at least seven villages, Biye added.

"Boko Haram have hoisted their flags in at least seven villages in the area which they now claim to be under their control," said the lawmaker.

Military jets bombarded Boko Haram positions in the affected area to try to flush out the insurgents, he added.

Communications in the remote border region are difficult, in part due to destruction of mobile phone towers by the insurgents.

View gallery

A man inspects rubble at Gamboru market burnt by suspected Boko Haram insurgents in Gamboru Ngala di …

News of attacks is usually slow to emerge while independent verification of death tolls is difficult.

Abba Goni, who lives in the mainly Muslim village of Goshe, said the gunmen were armed with Kalashnikov assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

The entire village of about 300 homes was razed with several mosques, he added.

"We lost many people, including (civilian) vigilantes who tried to fight off the Boko Haram attackers. At least 100 people were killed," said Goni, who fled to nearby Gamboru Ngala.

In the predominantly Christian village of Attagara, homes and a church were also set on fire while dozens of residents were killed, according to Bulus Yashi, who also escaped to Gamboru Ngala.

"It was a reprisal attack over the casualties Boko Haram suffered in the village in two previous attacks," he said.

On Sunday around a dozen gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a church in the village killing nine worshippers.

But residents mobilised and pursued the attackers, killing four and arresting four others, he added.

Villagers had also repelled an attack on the village on May 25, killing seven Boko Haram gunmen, he said.

"We believed they came on a revenge mission," he said.

Boko Haram Islamists have recently stepped up raids in northern Borno state near the borders with Camerron, Chad and Niger, pillaging villages, looting food stores and killing residents.

The attacks are generally seen as response to villagers forming civilian vigilante groups against Boko Haram, who in turn accuse the villagers of helping the Nigerian military's counter-insurgency.

The group, which wants to create a hardline Islamic state in northern Nigeria and has killed thousands since 2009, kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Borno on April 14.

Boko Haram kills hundreds of civilians: Witnesses

Nigeria's military reportedly failed to intervene in 3 attacks despite pleas from local officials.
Familiar tactic used

It’s like the plot of one of those dystopian young adult novels. There’s a sudden rapping at the door in the middle of the night. A stoic man in a trim suit hands you a warrant. Before you can open the crisp envelope you’re escorted to an imposing structure in the center of town. You’re led inside, and you disappear—never to be heard from again.

For years, this was the reality for those living in the subjugated corners of the Soviet Union, where prosperous and forward-thinking individuals suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Communist ideals were imposed with an iron fist, and any dissenters—from politicians to poets—were disposed of in a variety of decisive ways: deportation, torture, execution.

READ MORE Nine Best Travel Hacks

The agents responsible for cleansing society of the bees that didn’t belong in the hive were known as the KGB, the Committee for State Security (or the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, in Russian.) The organization rivaled the Stasi in their ability to gather information, purge adversaries, and evoke silent fear through an elaborate network of officers and collaborators.

In Riga, Latvia’s capital, the KGB set up their stronghold in an elegant building along the grand boulevards of the city center. The Latvians dubbed it “Stūra māja”—the Corner House, an ironically docile name considering the wicked machinations undertaken behind its walls.

READ MORE Where to Eat and Shop in NYC…All in One Spot

Built during the industrial boom at the beginning of the 20th century, the Corner House was originally commissioned as a stack of luxury apartments for the newly wealthy. The façade bore all the trendy trappings of the Art Nouveau movement that swept across the European continent. It was so beguiling that the Latvian government purchased the building in the 1920s and transformed it into offices for the Ministry of the Interior.

When the Soviets barged into Latvia in 1940, the NKVD (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del in Russian, the predecessor of the KGB) co-opted the ministry, enlisting the Latvian officials to do their bidding in the ultimate act of governmental puppetry.

A prison cell is seen in the former Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) headquarters, popularly known as …

READ MORE Who Is Bambi, the Female Banksy?

Privy to the grand totalitarian plans laid out by Moscow officials, General Ludvigs Bolšteins—head of the Latvian Border Guard—decided to commit suicide instead of abetting the enemy in the destruction of a free Latvia. He shot himself at his desk on the fifth floor of the Corner House, leaving a note warning others of the atrocities to come.

Bolšteins’ predictions quickly materialized, and a harrowing year of tyranny followed. On the eve of June 14, 1941, an unrelenting sequence of prisoner massacres and Siberian deportations came to a head when over 15,000 “blacklisted” people disappeared, essentially annihilating Riga’s elite in one fell swoop.

READ MORE Would You Buy a URL as Art?

A month later, the German Nazis closed in on Latvia and its neighbors, Estonia and Lithuania, “saving” the region from Russian rule. Intent on carrying out their own agenda—eliminating the Jewish and Gypsy populations—they opened the doors of the Corner House to the public, exposing the hall of horrors in the hopes of stoking the fires of revenge and inspiring allegiance to the new regime.

And what the Latvians found was beyond their worst nightmares.While the upper floors were the prim domain of police officers and clerical staff, the basement contained a labyrinth of holding cells and interrogation rooms that led to a firing wall. Subterranean temperatures were kept above a sweltering 30 degrees Celsius (over 85 degrees Farenheit) to incite paralyzing thirst, as prisoners were stuffed 20 to a cell in rooms meant for four inmates. Blinding lights prevented sleep, the fetid stench of overflowing chamber pots made it hard to breathe, and captives were randomly selected for execution to maintain an air of continuous fear.

READ MORE A Tad Too Off the Beaten Path in Burma

In 1944, the Nazi influence waned, allowing the Soviet tide to come crashing back down on the Baltic shores. The Corner House once again became a bastion of quiet influence for the KGB officials, who quickly reinstated their presence and iron-fist rule. This time, however, Latvians were concretely aware of the fate that awaited them should they receive a summons to the ominous house at the end of the block.

The KGB wielded their secret power through five dark decades until the end of the Cold War in 1991. When Latvia regained its independence, access to the lower levels of the Corner House was promptly shut off; the country chose to focus on its promising future rather than its painful past.

A view is seen of the prison cell door in the former Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) headquarters, popularly …

READ MORE Australia’s Foul Great Barrier Reef Dump

But after over 20 years of freedom, the discourse began to change and talk of transforming the Soviet time capsule into a museum gained momentum. This year, the shuttered doors of the derelict structure are finally opening, turning the collective desire for truth telling into reality.

With help from the influx of money from the E.U. that came in after Riga was named one of 2014’s European Capitals of Culture, the city is reopening the Corner House from May until mid-October. Visitors can tour the veritable haunted house, visiting the room where General Bolšteins took his own life and exploring the crypt-like cellar where countless victims lost their lives. Almost nothing has been touched since the fall of the USSR in 1991, providing an uncanny glimpse behind the iron curtain.

READ MORE Mecca for Artichoke Lovers

The only remnant of the era that remains off-limits to the public are the KGB’s administrative documents, meticulous notes detailing the workings of the secret police, including the names of collaborators, informants, and double agents—many of whom are still alive. Despite the newfound spirit of disclosure, these files have been sealed and stored in an undisclosed location. They contain a truth that is still too hard to bear.

A building meant to become luxury apartments in Latvia's capital took on a sinister purpose.
Stark images hint at grim past

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 100 alleged gang members were charged Wednesday for what law enforcement officials called a decades-old feud that wreaked violence and death over two Harlem public housing developments.

"These three gangs were not sophisticated drug-trafficking organizations," said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in announcing the two indictments. "Far from it, they were young people protecting their territories from imaginary threats and avenging the murders of fellow gang members and loved ones."

The 103 suspected gang members face charges including conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder and gang assault.

Forty suspects from three gangs were arrested in early morning raids in Harlem, 39 were already jailed on other offenses and the rest were being sought in what Vance called the largest gang case in New York City history.

The crews warred over territory for two city housing developments, the General Grant Houses and the Manhattanville Houses, and their feuding and vendetta attacks are thought to have resulted in the 2011 shooting death of a nationally-ranked high school basketball star named Tayshana "Chicken" Murphy, Vance said.

Murphy, 18, was shot and killed in the General Grant Houses. Two men convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life for her slaying were members of the Make It Happen Boys crew, Vance said. But Murphy's brother is alleged in the indictment as being a member of 3Stacks, Vance said, and is charged with conspiracy of the first degree.

View gallery

New York City police commissioner William Bratton laughs as he speaks during a news conference at On …

Commissioner William Bratton, who attended the early morning raids Wednesday, said much of the violence was senseless.

"It's just violence for violence sake," he said at a press conference. "Feuds over nothing."

Investigators from Vance's office worked with gang squad detectives and Department of Correction officials to review more than 1 million Facebook pages, tens of thousands of phone calls from the Rikers Island jail complex and hundreds of hours of video footage in preparing the case, Vance said.

Surveillance video, taken from cameras in the buildings' elevators, hallways and grounds, were a major benefit to investigators, Bratton said. But not all public housing developments have video. Nearly 60 percent of the city's public housing buildings don't have a single camera installed — including one in Brooklyn where two small children were stabbed Sunday, one fatally.

"We embrace it, we need it," Bratton said of crime-fighting technology such as camera systems. "There's not a case I get briefed on in my crime briefings or my counterterrorism briefings each morning that doesn't have some significant technology component to it."

The crews — called 3Stacks, Make it Happen Boys and Money Avenue — are alleged to have used more than 50 weapons over the past four years, some of which were transported by kids as young as 10, and are responsible for two killings and 19 nonfatal shootings, among other crimes, Vance said. The youngest gang member charged is 15 years old, he said.

Police officials estimate nontraditional street crews comprised of school-aged youngsters account for about 40 percent of shootings citywide.

The suspects are expected to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday.

The arrests are part of an investigation that stemmed from the 2011 murder of a high school basketball star.
3 feuding groups

Russia's professional troublemakers have arrived by the hundreds in Eastern Ukraine.

The Vostok Battalion, a Russian intelligence-linked Chechen-founded paramilitary consisting of battle-hardened militants from the most restive regions within Moscow's orbit, has arrived to take charge of Ukraine's pro-Russian rebels.

On May 30, Vostok took over rebel headquarters in Donetsk, asserting control over less-disciplined separatist militants. According to the New York Times today, the group, which became active in Ukraine in early May, has even set up a training camp in Donetsk's botanical gardens.

Vostok's presence in Eastern Ukraine signals a subtle and important pivot in Russian president Vladimir Putin's strategy. Russia has drawn down its uniformed forces from Ukraine's border, creating the impression that there's no imminent threat of a conventional invasion. At the same time, experienced irregulars with connections to Russia's intelligence services have helped extend Moscow's reach inside of it southern neighbor.

As New York University professor and Russia expert Mark Galeotti explained to Business Insider when reached in Moscow, Vostok consists of militants from Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ossetia — some of the most conflict-torn places in Russia's domain. "They aren't there to replace the militias in Eastern Ukraine. They're there to be the force that essentially controls them in Moscow's name," says Galeotti.

Vostok was disbanded after the 2008 Russian incursion into Georgia, in which it participated. The battalion had been managed by a Chechen family with a longstanding vendetta against Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's pro-Russian leader. Now that Vostok can be useful again, it's been allowed to reconstitute itself.

Moscow's current objective in eastern Ukraine isn't annexation or direct control. Rather, Putin wants to maintain relative order with an eye towards reaching a favorable accord with the new government in Kiev — one that effectively resets the situation to late 2013, when Ukraine's pro-Moscow government was still planning on joining Putin's Eurasian customs union and spurning any EU or NATO overtures.

Under this strategy, Ukraine remains a permanent member of Russia's "near abroad," with its politics operating within parameters set by Moscow. The Vostok Battalion helps advance that goal.

"This is a specifically Russian military intelligence operation," says Galeotti. "They stood this force up and its role is to try and reassert some degree of control over the situation. Moscow is beginning to become alarmed how Eastern Ukraine was spinning into chaos and warlordism."

Vostok is one of Moscow's instruments in achieving this victor's peace. Their role is "essentially political," Galeotti says: Vostok is Putin's way of controlling other, less disciplined pro-Russian militants.

But there are between 300 and 400 Russian fighters from Vostok in Ukraine right now, and they are highly capable soldiers.

"They are mainly battle-hardened veterans," says Galeotti. "They are a cut above not just almost all of the other militia, but at the same time they are also more capable than almost any of the Ukrainian regular military."

As a result, the rebels are now capable of shooting down aircraft, and seizing critical infrastructure. The Russian army may no longer be camped out on Ukraine's border, and the country's incident-free presidential election created the perception that the situation is de-escalating.

In reality, Putin's latest power play in Ukraine is already in progress.