The Taliban is showing off their latest battlefield trophy — a POW dog.
The militants posted a video showing a mournful-looking Belgian Malinois or Belgian shepherd, held on a tight leash and surrounded by five heavily armed thugs.
“Allah gave victory to the mujahideen!” one of the militants is heard boasting of a Taliban military operation in Afghanistan’s eastern Laghman province, where they said the pooch was captured.
The video’s narrator said three rifles, one pistol and a torch were seized together with the dog, which the Taliban believed was particularly important — because he was called “Colonel” by its American handlers.
Over the past decade, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has used hundreds of dogs — usually Labradors, German shepherds and spaniels, to sniff out improvised explosive devices, weapons and drugs.
But American officials said that this appears to be the first time that one has been captured.
They said the dog went missing during a mission in December.
Some of the Afghan battlefield dogs have been awarded medals.
If wounded, they are airlifted from the front line to safety and medical treatment.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed the capture of Colonel was a major success because the pooch was carrying sophisticated electronic devices — a GPS and a small camera, which was connected to a harness.
“The dog was of high significance to the Americans,” he told The Washington Post.
But NATO sources said the small, reddish-brown dog was actually assigned to a British SAS special-forces unit.
Rumors of a captured NATO dog circulated in Afghanistan for weeks after it was reported that a senior militant commander was spotted with a “foreign dog.”
But there was no confirmation until the propaganda video was posted on a Taliban-linked Twitter account on Wednesday.
Colonel is alive and well, and his fate will be determined later, the Taliban said.
What that means is unclear, because dogs are seen as unclean creatures by some Muslims and are viewed with suspicion by the Taliban.
Perhaps the most famous Belgian Malinois to serve as a military canine was Cairo, a member of the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout.