The Taliban’s release of a new video purportedly showing a captured American soldier in Afghanistan “is a horrible act,” a U.S. military official said Friday.

Pfc. Bowe Robert Bergdahl, 23, disappeared from his combat outpost in southeastern Paktika province sometime after he finished his guard duty shift on the night of June 29. The military believes the man in the video is Bergdahl.

“To release this video on X-Mas Day is an affront to the deeply concerned family and friends of Bowe Bergdahl, demonstrating contempt for religious traditions and the teachings of Islam,” said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

Wearing U.S. Army combat fatigues stripped of the name tag and rank, the man in the video identifies himself as Bergdahl and emphasizes that he has been treated humanely.

But Smith said the soldier “was clearly compelled to read a prepared statement.”

A senior U.S. official, who could not speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the circumstances, said the sections of the video with interviews of Bergdahl appear to have been filmed some months ago.

The official said the document is not considered a “proof of life” video. The timing and authenticity of other sections of the video and the locations where it was made have not been determined, the official said.

Bergdahl’s family in Idaho has been waiting anxiously ever since the Taliban said last week that a video release was imminent, according to Lt. Col. Tim Marsano, public affairs officer for the Idaho National Guard, who has been serving as a liaison between Bergdahl’s family and the media.

Bergdahl, an airborne infantryman, also appeared in a 28-minute Web video released by the Taliban in July, in which he was calm but became emotional when speaking about his fiance and family and going home.

(Source: CNN)