Who Is Austin Tice? U.S. Reached Out To Syrian Rebels About Locating Missing American, Blinken Says.
The U.S. has held talks with the rebel group that overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday, suggesting officials have prioritized locating Austin Tice, an American journalist who was kidnapped in the country more than a decade ago.
Tice, a freelance journalist and Marine Corps veteran, was kidnapped in Syria more than a decade ... [+]
Tice, a Houston native, graduated from Georgetown University, served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a captain and later returned to Georgetown for his law degree at an unspecified date, according to a website established by Tice’s family.
In May 2012, the year before Tice’s final year at Georgetown Law School, Tice’s family said he chose to travel to Syria as a freelance journalist to “tell the story of the ongoing conflict there” and how it affected the country’s “ordinary people.”
That August, Tice—who freelanced for the Washington Post, McClatchy and other publications, his family said—traveled just south of the Syrian capital of Damascus to write his “final pieces” and then planned to leave for Lebanon on Aug. 14, three days before his 31st birthday.
Syrian officials detained Tice at a checkpoint on Aug. 14, 2012, after Tice departed from the Damascus suburb of Darayya.
A video titled “Austin Tice Is Alive” circulated online weeks later showing Tice being held at gunpoint by men in masks, though the U.S.—which did not confirm whether Tice was featured in the video—has questioned whether the video is authentic and officials have suggested it was staged.
At the time, the State Department released a statement saying Tice had been captured by Assad’s government, but details about his imprisonment were not immediately known.
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4,506. That’s how many days Tice has been held captive in Syria as of Saturday, according to a running counter set up by his family.
Activist Sahar al-Ahmad told NBC News he spotted Tice while imprisoned in a Syrian prison in Damascus, suggesting Tice appeared to be in “somewhat good” condition in 2022. Debra and Marc Tice, Tice’s parents, told NBC earlier this month that they received information that Tice was alive before Assad was overthrown, though it was still unknown where Tice was being held. At a news conference on Dec. 6, Marc Tice said the new information was from a “significant source” vetted by the U.S. government and said the information indicates Tice is “alive and being cared for” as “late as earlier this year.”
Debra and Marc Tice said they met with former President Barack Obama before he left office and heard from his administration that officials had “high confidence” their son was alive. On the eighth anniversary of Tice being detained, then-President Donald Trump said he requested the Syrian government to “work with us to find and return Austin,” saying he was “again calling on Syria to help bring him home.” The Tice family met with President Joe Biden in May 2022, saying in a statement Biden had “made significant, encouraging commitments” to finding Austin Tice. On Dec. 8, shortly after Assad was overthrown, Biden said the U.S. would “remain committed” to returning Tice to his family and that his administration “[believes] he’s alive, but we have no direct evidence of that yet.” Biden noted “Assad should be accountable” for Tice’s kidnapping.
Blinken, who reportedly spoke Saturday while in Jordan, said the U.S. has spoken directly with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and other groups that helped overthrow Assad (the U.S. has designated HTS as a terrorist organization). The U.S. is considering lifting some sanctions against the groups, according to Blinken, who noted officials would “respond in kind” as Syria transitions out of an Assad regime. Blinken said the U.S. has “impressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home,” among other “principles” like guiding Syria in its political transition.
Prisoners fled Syrian prisons this week after Assad’s regime fell, marking the end of the Assad family’s authoritarian rule over the country after more than 50 years. Bashar al-Assad served as president for the last 24 years and ruled as the country boiled into a civil war in 2011. A counteroffensive backed by Russia reclaimed most of the country from rebel control in 2015, though rebel forces maintained control over a portion of northwestern Syria as U.S.-backed Kurdish forces held an area in the east. In recent weeks, the civil war was revitalized as Assad’s allies in Iran and Russia were preoccupied with their own conflicts, allowing rebel forces to close in on Damascus. After reports indicated Assad and his family were missing, it was later announced they were granted asylum in Moscow.
Another American, Travis Timmerman, was discovered after what he claimed was a monthslong imprisonment in Syria. Timmerman, 29, was detained by Syrian officials near the Lebanon border as he traveled on a pilgrimage to Damascus. He was reportedly flown out of Syria on a U.S. military helicopter shortly after he was found wandering barefoot in a Damascus suburb earlier this week.