US 'actively working' for release of American held by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Sullivan says
CNN
The US is "actively working" for the release of an American citizen who was detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan in early December, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday.
"This individual went to Afghanistan after the US drawdown had been completed," Sullivan told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." "I'm not going to get into the sensitivity of it, but I can assure you that it is being handled at the highest levels of our government."
At least eight Westerners have been arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan during different incidents in the last two months, CNN has learned, marking a sharp escalation of Taliban actions against Westerners living in the country.
The CIA has sent the White House an unclassified email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter – a deeply unorthodox move that could potentially expose the identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.