Kabul ? Local Taliban commanders threatened on Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.

Also Thursday, Canadian authorities announced that a Canadian soldier was killed southwest of Kandahar, bringing the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan to 47 this month. That makes July the deadliest month of the war for foreign troops — with nearly half the month to go.

The Taliban claimed last week to be holding the American soldier, whom the U.S. military earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands.

Abdullah Jalali, a spokesman for Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday that the soldier was healthy.

He said the soldier would be killed unless the U.S. stops airstrikes in Ghazni province’s Giro district and Paktika province’s Khoshamand district. Jalali did not explain why the Taliban chose those areas, noting only that Giro has been heavily bombed.