The United States has identified a handful of prisons in Syria that might provide clues to the fate of Austin Tice, an American journalist who was abducted in 2012 and believed held by the Syrian government.
The prisons were run by Syrian military intelligence and the Republican Guard, the elite forces stationed in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The U.S. government imposed sanctions on several military intelligence locations in 2021 for human rights abuses.
The Biden administration has long prioritized finding Mr. Tice. But the sudden collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s reign in Syria has given new urgency to the efforts and intensified hope that U.S. officials can finally learn Mr. Tice’s fate.
A senior administration official said that the U.S. government was working to find Mr. Tice and bring him home, but the official added that the United States did not have “new verifiable information” on his location.
The case has frustrated U.S. intelligence officials. The Syrian government has never acknowledged holding Mr. Tice and has shunned opportunities to make a deal for his release.
U.S. officials said the Trump administration and the Biden administration had both worked hard on the case. Several years ago, the C.I.A. created what is known as a targeting cell overseen by the intelligence analyst who had supervised the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a sign of how important the issue is to the agency.
In more recent years there was a feeling, at least with some officials, that the case had grown cold. But that all changed in the last week. The fall of the Assad government has unlocked opportunities, current and former officials said.
The rebel groups who toppled the government have emptied Syria’s political prisons, releasing people who may have information about Mr. Tice and potentially giving access to records that could shed light. Former prisoners and members of Mr. al-Assad’s government may finally be able to talk.
But the high-ranking Syrians who U.S. officials have long suspected have information about Mr. Tice’s disappearance remain elusive. They include Ali Mamlouk, a former head of Syria’s National Security Bureau intelligence service; Kifah Moulhem, who succeeded Mr. Mamlouk; Maher al-Assad, Mr. al-Assad’s brother; and Bassam al-Hassan, a top general.
On Sunday, President Biden expressed optimism that Mr. Tice could be found and brought home.
“We believe he’s alive,” Mr. Biden said. “We think we can get him back but we have no direct evidence of that yet. And Assad should be held accountable.”
But in subsequent comments, White House officials tempered expectations. On Tuesday, John F. Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, said that the fall of the Assad government “could present an opportunity for us to glean more information about him, his whereabouts, his condition.”
Mr. Kirby said the administration was “pushing as hard as we can to learn as much as we can.”
“We want to see him home with his family where he belongs,” Mr. Kirby said.
Hours later, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, tried to walk a fine line between showing the administration’s work on Mr. Tice’s case without raising hopes further.
“We do not know his location and we do not know his condition, so we are trying to do everything we can do to get that information,” she said. “We are committed to bringing him home.”
The U.S. government’s stance has not shifted dramatically in the years since the C.I.A. targeting cell was created to find Mr. Tice. American officials have no concrete evidence that he is dead, so they continue to work under the assumption that he might be alive.
U.S. military officials said no hostage rescue mission was being prepared, or even planned, a sign that the view that Mr. Tice could be brought home is a minority view.
But U.S. officials said that the American military, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. were trying to work through partners and sources to learn more in the current chaos. Officials are trying to get hold of any Syrian government documents or other records that might indicate where Mr. Tice was held, when he was moved and what happened to him in captivity.
When Israel began bombing Syrian military installations, the United States asked Israeli officials to avoid striking prisons where Mr. Tice might have been held or that have information about his whereabouts.
Mr. Tice vanished as Syria descended into civil war, but soon appeared blindfolded in a video, surrounded by armed captors. The circumstances of his capture are murky, but U.S. officials have said the Syrian government ultimately took him into custody.
Investigators learned that he had been initially taken to a prison in Damascus and had been seen by a doctor, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the matter. Mr. Tice managed to escape for about a week but was recaptured, the people said.
Efforts to reach the doctor since Mr. al-Assad’s government crumbled have been unsuccessful.
What happened to Mr. Tice since then remains a mystery, but at some point U.S. intelligence obtained a Syrian document indicating that the Assad government had been holding Mr. Tice. Former U.S. officials described it as a type of judicial form, possibly showing a prisoner or arrest number.
Over the years, U.S. officials had sought to engage the Syrian government with little success. In 2017, Michael Pompeo, then C.IA. director, spoke with Mr. Mamlouk, the head of the National Security Bureau intelligence service, about Mr. Tice. Another top C.I.A. official traveled to Damascus and also raised the subject of Mr. Tice.
In the final months of the Trump administration, two senior U.S. officials went to Syria: Roger D. Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, and Kash Patel, whom Mr. Trump has named as his pick to be F.B.I. director.
During the Biden administration, Brett McGurk, the president’s Middle East coordinator, and other officials met twice with Imad Moustapha, a former Syrian ambassador.
In the meetings, the Syrians did not disclose anything about Mr. Tice.
The post Hunt Continues for U.S. Journalist Who Disappeared in Syria appeared first on New York Times.
