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Pentagon: Military dog seized by Taliban isn’t ours

Posted at 2:47 PM, Feb 06, 2014
and last updated 2014-02-06 14:47:43-05

(CNN) — The Pentagon says a military dog seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan doesn’t belong to U.S. forces, contrary to the Taliban’s claim, but rather belongs to an ally force, a U.S. Department of Defense spokesman said Thursday.

The Taliban distributed a video of the dog in an elaborate harness and contended in links to its Twitter account that the “mujahideen seized US dog” during an “attempted nighttime raid” by U.S. forces on December 23 in the eastern province of Laghman.

But Cmdr. Bill Speaks said the dog isn’t part of the U.S. military and belongs to another country’s military in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

“I can confirm that ISAF did confirm that a coalition working dog went missing after an operation in December. However, this is not a U.S. military working dog,” Speaks said.

ISAF officials weren’t immediately available for comment Thursday.