Looking forlorn on a lead being held by a bearded Taliban fighter, this small reddish-brown dog was paraded for a Taliban cameraman as the group's latest war trophy in Afghanistan: an American military sniffer dog.
Other fighters milled around the dog, showing off weapons they say were captured along with the dog from US forces during a night raid in eastern Laghman province just before Christmas.
"You see the ears?" the handler said in the video, which was posted on the Taliban's Twitter account.
"They are down. That tells you that the dog is not aggressive and just wants to feel safe. Right now the dog is terrified.
"I can see in his eyes he just wants to get his handler."
The dog, apparently called "Colonel", wears a complex harness similar to ones used by some NATO forces.
The Taliban handler said the dog's harness was fitted with a GPS tracking device, a torch and small camera when they captured it.
There were local reports a few weeks ago that a senior Taliban commander in the area was seen with a "foreign dog" but the video is the first positive sighting of the dog, the BBC reports.
The dog appeared to be a Belgian shepherd, a breed popular with soldiers because it can work long hours without a break, The Guardian reports.
US officials said they were investigating the Taliban's claim.
NATO forces have long used dogs in Afghanistan to sniff out buried bombs and hidden narcotics, or to help search homes.
They usually stay close to the men and women who manage them but can sometimes be separated by a heavy gun battle or bomb, the Taliban handler said in the video.
Link to Article And Video
Another Casualty of that hopeless war.
The Taliban have a twitter account?
