Navy SEALs tried to find U.S. hostage
WASHINGTON — In the days after the capture of an American contractor in Afghanistan this year, Navy commandos raided a village and detained suspected members of a Talibanlinked militant network, the Associated Press has learned.
U.S. intelligence agents also tried to track the cell phones of the man and his captors, but the trail went cold, and there has been little public discussion by the U.S. government of Mark Frerichs’ case, even as American negotiators arranged prisoner exchanges as part of their efforts to reach a peace deal with the Taliban.
Little is known about the circumstances surrounding the abduction of the Illinois contractor, who worked on private commercial projects. However, the previously unreported attempts to rescue him were described by multiple American officials over the past month, and shed new light on early efforts to locate Frerichs in the weeks that followed his capture. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the mission.
Frerichs’ father, Art, said in a statement that though he has faith in President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, “I just need them to tell their people negotiating with the Taliban that America won’t lift a finger until my son comes home. He’s a veteran. This is America. We don’t leave people behind.”
Though no formal demands are known to have been made, U.S. intelligence officials believe Frerichs was captured by members of the Haqqani network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan that was designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.
Though the Haqqanis are known to carry out assassinations and kidnappings for ransom, Taliban leadership has not acknowledged Frerichs’ capture.
On Feb. 4, American intelligence officials received a report that Frerichs had possibly been moved to Quetta, Pakistan, a historical safe haven for the Taliban, the two officials said. But the information was deemed not credible enough to warrant a special operations mission, according to the senior U.S. government official.