Taliban hostages taught son games about beheadings

The parents of three children born in the captivity of the Taliban used games to teach their eldest son about beheadings in case it happened to them.

US woman Caitlan Coleman Boyle, 31, spent five years as a prisoner of the Taliban with her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle.

During that time they had three children, and described the struggle of raising them with the brutality of their captors.

"The idea of a beheading is always on the table, so (our son) certainly knew that this type of thing would happen," she told US network ABC this week.

"We would come up with games to make it not seem so scary.

"He had great fun pretending to be Oliver Cromwell chasing (King) Charles I around and trying to behead him.

"So we made it a game so that he wasn’t afraid, because there was, you know, there was nothing we could do if it came to that except try to make him less afraid."

The Boyles said they were in Afghanistan before their capture to help local villagers, but have declined to elaborate on what they were doing.

The captors repeatedly beat and tormented the Boyles, including the young children, to try and force them to become propagandists for the terror group.

"I made it very clear that I’d rather be the hostage than be on your side of the cage," Mr Boyle said.

"I'd rather be inside than outside."

Mrs Coleman Boyle said the guards poisoned her food to force a miscarriage when she was pregnant, and raped her when she tried to let visiting Taliban members know of their mistreatment.

The day of the rape, Pakistani gunships attacked the Taliban position where they were being held hostage.

"It was a big, big battle. And our guards were hiding out of sight. They were absolutely terrified," she said.

"But my husband and I were each laughing to ourselves ... thinking, 'I hope that these sons of bitches die today'."

She spoke about using discarded pieces of rubbish like bottle caps as toys for their children to play with, in the absence of anything else.

The family were rescued in a Pakistan military raid in October, and are now readjusting to life back in Canada.