Washington:
The Pentagon has said that Sgt Bowe Bergdahl spent much of his five years of captivity in Pakistan.
"We do have reason to believe that for much of his captivity he was held in Pakistan. We also believe that he was moved around. And it's very likely that his captors changed hands over the course of those five years," Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters yesterday.
Bergdahl, who was kidnapped by the Taliban in 2009, was released last week in exchange of five Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention centre.
"We never had a complete perfect visibility into where he was at any given moment. And obviously we had a constant dialogue with Pakistan over this throughout the course of his five years," Kirby said, but did not quantify the level of support the US received from Pakistan on this particular issue.
"We are grateful for the communication that we had with Pakistani authorities throughout this thing. But I wouldn't go into any more detail than that," Kirby said.
Kirby said the information about Sgt Bergdahl was not rock solid at any given time.
"It changed over time. We believed he was moved around quite a bit," he added.
"But in light of the ISI's close connection to the Haqqanis, it's more than dialogue that I imagine would have been requested and valued by the US government in terms of seeking him out, right?" he was asked.
"I'm just going to tell you we never lost focus on this and we never stopped trying to get him," Kirby responded.
"We have a close relationship with Pakistan on counter terrorism efforts. That continues," the Pentagon spokesperson added.