The Taliban have released a video of a captive U.S. Soldier who went missing on June 30, 2009. The Soldier’s identity has not been released to the public.

The Taliban video shows the American Soldier with his head shaved and the beginnings of a beard. Parts of it show him eating and sitting on a bed. He is interviewed on the video and is composed, except during a part in which he talks about his family and a girl back home that he hoped to marry. During that segment, his voice cracks a bit as he talks about his worries that he won’t make it back home. He gives the date as July 14th and describes a recent incident to verify the date.

He is being held by an al-Qaeda network known as the Haqqani network. They are a brutal, radical islamic group.

The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings including the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60 people. The Haqqani group also was linked to an assassination attempt on Afghan president Hamid Karzai early last year.

On Saturday, a U.S. military official in Kabul, Col. Greg Julian, said the U.S. was “still doing everything we can to return him safely.”

Julian said U.S. troops had distributed two flyers in the area where the soldier disappeared. One of them asked for information on the missing soldier and offered a $25,000 reward for his return. The other said “please return our soldier safely” or “we will hunt you,” according to Julian.

A number of civilians have been abducted in Afghanistan including aid workers and journalists, both foreigners and Afghans.

But the only other service member that officials could recall who had been captured was a Navy SEAL in March 2002, who fell out of a helicopter and was killed by al-Qaida.

The Taliban are claiming they will kill the U.S. GI if their demands aren’t met. They are demanding that the U.S. stop bombing in the Giro district of the Ghazni province and the Khoshamand district of the Paktika province.

Meanwhile, there is an all out manhunt for the missing U.S. Soldier by the American military. Flyers have been dropped in the area. Some of the flyers offer a $25,000 reward for information that leads to his safe return. Other fliers warn residents that the wrath of the U.S. military will come down on their heads if they don’t help find him. Whether or not the locals help in finding this American Soldier will depend on whether they are more afraid of the U.S. military or the Taliban. And whether they believe the U.S. military will protect them from the Taliban if they do help. Unfortunately, our reputation for protecting civilian populations who help us went south when we pulled out of Vietnam and left 3 million to die in our wake in 1975. There are few people who believe that the Obama administration has any bite or will follow through with threats should this Soldier be murdered.

His family is aware that he is the one who is missing. It has to be simply unbearable for them. I can’t imagine what they are going through or what this young captive US Soldier is going through. With the release of this Taliban video, at least we know that he is still alive, but we also know more about the dire situation he is in.

All we can do is pray for him. And we are certainly doing that.

UPDATE: His name, unit and the video have been released to the public.