Spc. Bowe Bergdahl in one of many anti-American Taliban videos on YouTube



BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- The father of the only U.S. soldier held captive in the Afghan war appealed to the Pakistani military for help in freeing his son in a video posted on YouTube on Friday.

However it appears the video disappeared from the public video hosting site by Friday afternoon.

The link to the video appearing in an Associated Press article takes viewers to the YouTube site, but as the page pulls up, half the HTML code disappears and the viewer is left on the YouTube homepage with a generic search field.

Searches for 'Bob Bergdahl' only bring up countless heartbreaking videos taken of Spc. Bowe Bergdahl by the Taliban in which he is forced to read anti-American scripts.

Bergdahl's parents have declined to say much publicly since their son went missing from his base in southern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009.

While it's unclear where the 25-year-old soldier is being held, a video that surfaced earlier this week shows him standing next to a senior official in the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network in Paktika province in Afghanistan.

In Friday's video, Idaho resident Bob Bergdahl urges members of the Pakistani military to help secure his son's release. He directly references Pakistan Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of the country's intelligence service.

"Our family is counting on your professional integrity and your honor to secure the safe return of our son," he said. "And we thank you. Our family knows the high price that has been paid by your men in the army and the frontier corps. We give our condolences and thanks to the families of those who have fallen for Pakistan."

Idaho National Guard spokesman Col. Tim Marsano, a liaison for the U.S. Army in Idaho, confirmed that Bob Bergdahl is the man in the video.

Wearing a long beard he began growing just after his son's capture, Bob Bergdahl speaks in both English and Arabic in the video, and he talks directly to members of the Haqqanis and their military commander, Mullah Sangeen.

"Strangely to some, we must also thank those who have cared for our son, for almost two years, Mullah Sangeen, the Haqqanis, and others who have played a role in sheltering the American prisoner," he said. "We know our son is a prisoner and at the same time a guest in your home."

The video comes after Osama Bin Laden's death on Sunday in Pakistan. Bergdahl doesn't allude to any relationship between that and the timing of this video.