Caitlan Coleman, the 31-year-old American woman who gave birth to three children while held hostage by the Haqqani network, has disputed Pakistan’s account of her rescue in an interview likely to embarrass the country’s powerful military.

Pakistan has long bridled at accusations it harbours militants including the Taliban-linked Haqqanis inside the country.

Yet in her first interview since being released, Ms Coleman said that she and her family had spent “more than a year” in Pakistan before their rescue on Oct 11. Pakistan’s military had claimed to have freed the hostages as they were crossing the border from Afghanistan.

“We were not crossing into Pakistan that day”, Ms Coleman told the Toronto Star, explaining that the Haqqanis had often kept her and her husband, whom they had captured in 2012, in Pakistan.

The family passed their final few months in between Kohat and Banu, districts in the lawless tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, she said. According to Ms Coleman her husband, Joshua Boyle, 34, understood enough Farsi to keep tabs on their location.

Such claims corroborate the view of US officials, who last week told Reuters they believed the couple were held near the Haqqanis' headquarters in northwest Pakistan.

However, Ms Coleman also sought to clarify that the couple crossed the border regularly and, in contrast to the statement of CIA Director Mike Pompeo, did not spend the entire five years of their captivity in the country.