Ex-Taliban POW Bergdahl 'returns to US military duty'

Sgt Bergdahl had spent over a month under treatment.

TEXAS: The American soldier who was held captive by the Afghan Taliban for nearly five years, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, is returning to active military duty after more than a month of counseling, the US Army said Monday.

"He will now return to regular duty within the command where he can contribute to the mission" at a base in Texas, the army said in a statement.

The US soldier freed in a controversial swap with the Afghan Taliban arrived back in the United States in June, his latest step in a return to normalcy after five years in captivity.

The Pentagon said Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl arrived in the middle of the night on a flight from Germany to San Antonio, Texas where was treated at Brooke Army Medical Center.

Bergdahl was handed over to US special forces in Afghanistan on May 31 in return for five senior Taliban detainees who were sent to Qatar from the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects.

The US Army sergeant had been recuperating at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, amid growing debate over the swap that secured his freedom, with some US lawmakers accusing President Barack Obama of capitulating to “terrorists.”