Story highlights Peter Bergen: Video appeal to President-elect by kidnapped American is unprecedented

It's long past time for hostages of Haqqani Network to be returned home, Bergen says

Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor at Arizona State University. He is the author of "United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists."

(CNN) In an unprecedented public appeal to an incoming president, kidnapped American citizen Caitlin Coleman addressed President-elect Donald Trump directly in a video, urging him to secure the release of her and her family.

The video, released Monday by the Taliban, underlines the continuing plight of Coleman, 31, and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, 33, who have been held captive in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region for more than four years.

The video shows Coleman and Boyle as well as their two young sons, who were born in captivity and are now toddlers. It is the first time there has been a "proof of life" of the children.

Peter Bergen

One of the boys sucks on a pacifier while his mother addresses the camera. Coleman, wearing a black burqa, speaks clearly and forcedly, saying: "Today is December 3, 2016. We have waited since 2012 for somebody to understand our problems, the Kafkaesque nightmare in which we find ourselves."

Coleman and Boyle were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012 while on a backpacking trip.

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