Freed Canadian hostage Joshua Boyle has related the horrific account of his family’s horrific five years’ captivity in Afghanistan, saying members of the Haqqani terrorist group killed his infant daughter and raped his wife during the years they were held hostage.

He shared the details of his capture shortly after touching down in Toronto with his wife Caitlan Coleman and their three young children mere days after a daring commando raid finally ended their ordeal.

Ms Coleman and Mr Boyle were rescued on Wednesday (local time), five years after they had been abducted by a Taliban-linked extremist network while in Afghanistan as part of a backpacking trip.

Ms Coleman, pregnant at the time, gave birth four times while in captivity. Mr Boyle said one of the children was killed.

“The stupidity and evil of the Haqqani network’s kidnapping of a pilgrim and his heavily pregnant wife engaged in helping ordinary villagers in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorising the murder of my infant daughter,” Mr Boyle said.

The birth of the fourth child had not been publicly known before the family arrived in Canada.

He added that one of his children was in poor health and had to be force-fed by their Pakistani rescuers.

The final leg of the family’s journey was an Air Canada flight Friday from London to Toronto, where relatives and in-laws reacted with both joy and anger.

Ms Coleman’s mother, Lynda, told ABC America that hearing her daughter’s voice for the first time was “incredible”.

But her father, Jim, said he was still angry at Mr Boyle for arranging the trip to Afghanistan in the first place.

“Taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place, to me, and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable,” he said.

Ms Coleman is from Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, and Mr Boyle is Canadian.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said the Pakistani raid that led to the family’s rescue was based on a tip from US intelligence and shows that Pakistan will act against a “common enemy” when Washington shares information.

US officials have long accused Pakistan of ignoring groups like the Haqqani network, which was holding the family.

Trump praises Pakistan

On Thursday, President Donald Trump, who previously warned Pakistan to stop harbouring militants, praised Pakistan for its willingness to “do more to provide security in the region.”

The operation appeared to have unfolded quickly and ended with what some described as a dangerous raid, a shootout and a captor’s final, terrifying threat to “kill the hostage”.

Mr Boyle told his parents that he, his wife and their children were intercepted by Pakistani forces while being transported in the back or trunk of their captors’ car and that some of his captors were killed. He suffered a shrapnel wound, his family said.

A US military official said a military hostage team had flown to Pakistan Wednesday prepared to fly the family out.

Mr Boyle’s father said his son did not want to board the plane because it was headed to Bagram Air Base and the family wanted to return directly to North America.

Boyle ‘nervous about being in custody’

Another US official said Mr Boyle was nervous about being in “custody” given his family ties.

He was once married to Zaynab Khadr, the older sister of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr and the daughter of a senior al-Qaida financier.

Her father, the late Ahmed Said Khadr, and the family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly when Omar Khadr was a boy.

The US Justice Department said neither Boyle nor Coleman is wanted for any federal crime.

US officials call the Haqqani group a terrorist organisation and have targeted its leaders with drone strikes.

But the group also operates like a criminal network. Unlike the Islamic State group, it does not typically execute Western hostages, preferring to ransom them for cash.

-with ABC and AAP