The mum of Austin Tice, an American journalist kidnapped in Syria, mentioned on Monday that she had met with Syria’s new chief in Damascus and expressed hope that “a web page might be became” within the greater than decade-long seek for her son.
Debra Tice gave a information convention in Damascus on Monday after the assembly with Ahmed al-Shara, whose riot workforce Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led the unexpected offensive final month that toppled President Bashar al-Assad, finishing greater than 50 years of Assad circle of relatives rule in Syria. Syria’s state information company additionally reported at the assembly, posting photos of her in dialog with Mr. al-Shara on the presidential palace.
Despite the fact that she had no new knowledge on her son’s whereabouts, Ms. Tice, who arrived in Damascus on Saturday, mentioned she felt positive that Syria’s new riot leaders would lend a hand her and Syrian households on the lookout for family members nonetheless lacking after being held within the previous regime’s infamous prisons.
“It was once so superb to be told that they’re devoted and decided to carry house my son and your sons,” Ms. Tice mentioned, addressing Syrians on the lookout for lacking family members as neatly. “They know what we’re going via.”
Ms. Tice mentioned that so far as she knew, her son was once nonetheless being held captive, however the turmoil since Mr. al-Assad’s ouster made it a lot more tough to determine his whereabouts.
“It’s like beginning in every single place once more,” she mentioned.
Mr. Tice was once abducted at a checkpoint in a suburb of Damascus in 2012. He seemed no longer lengthy after in a video, blindfolded and held through masked males with attack rifles. Former U.S. officers mentioned they believed that the video was once a ploy through the federal government guilty rebels for his disappearance.
Former and present U.S. officers have mentioned they consider Mr. Tice controlled to flee a number of weeks after his seize via a window of a jail mobile, however was once stuck through Syrian intelligence.
President Joe Biden mentioned in December, after Mr. al-Assad’s ouster, that U.S. officers believed Mr. Tice was once nonetheless being held captive and was hoping to carry him house, whilst including that they’d “no direct proof” about his standing.
Officers in his management spent years in search of Mr. Tice, together with a discuss with to Damascus in December through his particular envoy on hostages. The White Space additionally gave the riot workforce an inventory of former Syrian officers who would possibly have wisdom about Mr. Tice, a contract journalist from Houston who wrote for The Washington Submit and different shops.
However Ms. Tice has just lately been vital of the Biden management, announcing it didn’t negotiate arduous sufficient for her son’s free up.
Ms. Tice mentioned she felt hopeful concerning the incoming management of Donald Trump. “Issues are going to modify,” she mentioned. “I’m taking a look ahead to that. His folks have already reached out to me.”
It was once Ms. Tice’s first discuss with to Syria since 2015, when she met with officers of the Assad govt, who by no means showed whether or not they held her son and later stopped issuing her visas.
All the way through her assembly with Mr. al-Shara, Ms. Tice mentioned, he spoke to her of his personal time in jail. In 2003, Mr. al-Shara joined Al Qaeda to struggle the U.S. career of Iraq, the place Mr. Tice as soon as served as a Marine. Mr. al-Shara spent years in a U.S. jail in Iraq, in line with Arab media accounts.
After main Al Qaeda’s Syrian department within the early days of the 13-year rebel in opposition to Mr. al-Assad, Mr. al-Sharaa reformulated the crowd as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in 2017 and has sought to distance it from its Al Qaeda previous.
Former and present U.S. officers have mentioned they consider Mr. Tice was once held in numerous security-service detention amenities, together with Department 248 and Department 215, each believed to be army intelligence websites.
All the way through her discuss with to Syria she visited each puts, Ms. Tice mentioned, describing them as an “terrible, horrible nightmare.”
