The Taliban has released a video showing a coalition military working dog they say was captured, as well as weapons and gear that appear to belong to coalition forces.
A NATO spokesman, Lt. Col. Will Griffin, told the Washington Post that the International Security Assistance Force did indeed lose a military working dog during combat operations in December. He did not provide further details.
A Pentagon spokesman also told the Post that he could not recall a prior instance of a military working dog being captured by enemy forces. But in 2008, Australian Special Forces lost an explosive detection dog named Sarbi, who disappeared during an ambush. That dog was recovered unharmed by American forces 14 months later.
NATO would only say that the dog shown in the Taliban video, referred to by the Talibs in the video as “Colonel,” was not American, but would not say which coalition nation lost the dog, according to the Marine Corps Times.
But a Taliban spokesman reached via Twitter told the Wall Street Journal that the dog was captured during a Dec. 23 raid. Only one non-U.S. coalition country that had troops killed in action on that date was the United Kingdom.
Watch the video released by the Taliban below: