By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-16 20:36:32 | Updated at 2024-12-17 00:07:13
3 hours ago
The US State Department on Monday said there is no US government organisation currently on the ground in Syria for the search of Austin Tice, an American journalist taken captive during a reporting trip in August 2012, but did not rule out the possibility.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing that the US was continuing to try and locate Tice, but did not have specific information about his whereabouts.
When asked why the US has still not yet sent a delegation to Syria, Miller said: “I’m not ruling out that we won’t send personnel to Damascus. Stay tuned over the coming days.”
Tice, a former US Marine, is the focus of a massive search following the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after 13 years of civil war. Rebels, led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have released thousands of people from prisons in Damascus where Assad held political opponents, ordinary civilians and foreigners.
Miller added that the US government over the past week has had communications with HTS that have in part been largely focused on getting help to find Tice.
“We have a number of people engaged on trying to find Austin Tice and bring him home, and we communicated directly to HTS that anything that they could do to help us find him, we would greatly appreciate, and they committed to do that,” Miller said.
