US faces challenge freeing Americans held hostage on Pakistani-Afghan border | Fox News

What is your perspective about negotiating ransoms with hostage takers? Will this practice only serve to encourage kidnapping whether for financial or political goals, e.g., Mexico's rampant kidnapping problems.

REPORT: A Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell also was established as the single government entity responsible for coordinating the recovery the U.S hostages abroad, located in the FBI headquarters but with professionals from several agencies including the Department of Defense and Department of Justice involved.

The changes were prompted by a series of tragedies surrounding American hostages in recent years, including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Kayla Mueller, who were all murdered by their ISIS captors. Aid worker Warren Weinstein was inadvertently killed by a CIA drone strike while in the internment of Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Dozens of Americans -- including former U.S. Marine-turned-journalist Austin Tice, who vanished in Syria, and retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007 -- are reportedly being held around the world, although many have not been heard from in months or even years. But whether the Obama administration’s new approach will prove effective remains to be seen.