Exclusive: U.S. Citizen Kidnapped By Taliban Group in Afghanistan By James LaPorta , Tom O'Connor AND Naveed Jamali On 2/5/20 at 8:23 PM EST
An American contractor was captured by Taliban-aligned militants in Afghanistan last week, triggering a country-wide recovery effort,
Newsweek has learned.
Mark R. Frerichs of Lombard, Illinois, was kidnapped last Friday in Khost, a province located in the southeastern part of the country that borders the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, an underdeveloped region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. officials told
Newsweek, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details publicly.
Frerichs, 57, is a former U.S. Navy diver and the managing director for International Logistical Support, a U.S. government contractor. According to his LinkedIn account, he has worked as a civil engineer in several conflict zones from Iraq to Sudan during the past 10 years, where he has consulted on logistical contracts for both governments and non-governmental organizations. U.S. officials told
Newsweek Frerichs had regularly traveled to Afghanistan since 2012.
During the past few days, American forces carried out both ground and intelligence-gathering operations to track the whereabouts of Frerichs while navigating difficult Afghan topography and severe winter weather that has prevented overhead surveillance missions by U.S. military drones.
Newsweek first learned about the kidnapping on Monday. The Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, a multi-agency team based at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., asked
Newsweek to hold the story until efforts to recover Frerichs progressed, and the publication agreed.
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