Syria Helps in Search for Missing Journalist Austin Tice
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Editor
- . December 21, 2024
- . Update: December 21, 2024 9:51 pm
Searches are being conducted at sites of interest for the missing journalist Austin Tice and US officials stated Friday that Syria’s new leaders have helped in the effort. Finding Tice and other missing Americans is a major priority for the new Islamist-led authorities as stated by the US diplomats during their first visit to Damascus since Islamist-led rebels overthrew Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.
Roger Carstens, the US pointman on hostages said that “We feel it’s our duty as the US government to press on until we know with certainty what happened to him, where he is and to bring him home.”
He said that he collaborated with the recently appointed Syrian government on Friday to look for a possible holding place of Tice. “There are other locations that need to be searched in the coming days, weeks and months, and we’ll be working with the interim authorities,” Carstens told reporters after the search.
“The bottom line is that over 12 years, we’ve been able to pinpoint about six facilities that we believe have a high possibility of having had Austin Tice at one point or another,” he added.
When Tice was arrested at a checkpoint in August 2012, he was employed by Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media organizations as well. Carstens stated that although US teams were not yet permitted to work in Syria, he has asked journalists and non-governmental organizations for help in finding Tice.
Up to three other sites of interest have lately been added according to Carstens and he anticipated that all of them will be thoroughly searched. Earlier this month, Tice’s mother Debra revealed that she had received word that her son is still alive.
According to Carstens, the US is also looking for information on other Americans such as Majd Kamalmaz, a Syrian-American psychiatrist who is thought to have passed away in 2017 after being imprisoned by the Assad regime.