MANAMA, Bahrain, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. believes

that an alleged sweeping Chinese cyber espionage campaign known

as Salt Typhoon targeted and recorded telephone calls of "very

senior" American political figures, a White House official said

on Saturday.

The comments by Anne Neuberger, the U.S. deputy national

security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, to reporters

at the Manama Dialogue regional security conference in Bahrain's

capital revealed new details of the campaign.

While a large number of Americans' metadata likely has been

stolen, U.S. officials understand that "the purpose of the

operation was more focused," Neuberger said.

"We believe ... the actual number of calls that they took,

recorded and took, was really more focused on very senior

political individuals," she continued.

She did not elaborate, including revealing the identities of

those who were targeted.

Chinese officials previously have described the allegations

as disinformation and said that Beijing "firmly opposes and

combats cyber attacks and cyber theft in all forms."

"We're still investigating the scope and scale" of the

hacking campaign, Neuberger said.

The New York Times in October reported that members of U.S.

President-elect Donald Trump's family and Biden administration

officials were among those targeted by China-linked hackers who

broke into telecommunications companies.

A senior U.S. official this week said dozens of companies

worldwide have been struck by the hackers, including at least

eight telecommunications and telecom infrastructure firms in the

U.S.

U.S. officials have alleged the hackers' targets included

Verizon, AT&T ( T ), T-Mobile, Lumen,

and others and that telephone audio intercepts along with a

large tranche of call record data were stolen.