DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria's new leadership says it holds ousted President Bashar al-Assad responsible for the "pain inflicted" for years on the family of Austin Tice as the search goes on for the American journalist who went missing in the country more than a decade ago while he was reporting on the Syrian civil war.
“We hold Bashar al-Assad and his criminal regime accountable for the consequences of Austin’s disappearance and the pain inflicted on his mother — pain, tears and separation," Obaida Al-Arnaot, official spokesperson and head of the political affairs department of Syria’s interim government, said in an interview Wednesday.
Arnaot said the interim government had tried to find Tice, who is 43, to reunite him with his family but has so far had no luck.
"We tried as much as possible to find information about Austin and return him to his mother, but we have not reached any result," he said.
A video emerged online overnight claiming to show a missing American alive in the town of Dhiyabia, just outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, sparking speculation that it could be Tice. But a senior U.S. official told NBC News it was not Tice, and a source close to Tice’s family said they do not believe the man in the video is their missing son.
The man in the video instead identified himself to NBC News as “Travis” from Missouri, declining to provide a last name before later identifying himself as Travis Timmerman, last seen in Budapest, Hungary, in May. He said that he had crossed into Syria on foot before he was detained and that he had been held in prison for months.
Tice, from Houston, disappeared in 2012 just days after he celebrated his 31st birthday in Syria, where he was reporting on the civil war that began a year earlier.
Video emerged shortly after he disappeared showing masked men holding him at gunpoint, but the U.S. government questioned the video's authenticity, suggesting it was staged.
Instead, the State Department said Tice was believed to be in the custody of the Syrian government — a charge Assad's regime vehemently denied.
In an interview in Damascus, Syrian journalist Saher al-Ahmad said he had seen Tice on two occasions while he himself was imprisoned at a facility in the capital's Kafr Sousa district. He said he did not speak with him.
The last time he saw Tice was in July 2022, said Ahmad, who described Tice as appearing to be in "somewhat good" condition.
However, he said, "he was thin when I saw him. His neck bones were slightly protruding, but he was able to walk and move because they allowed him and other prisoners to exercise and walk for one hour in the prison corridor."
Generally, Ahmad said, the conditions foreign prisoners were held in were "excellent" compared with those endured by Syrian prisoners, and he said Tice appeared to be held in a large cell alone.
With Assad overthrown by rebel forces, Tice's family has expressed renewed hope that they will be reunited with their son.
In an interview with “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt," Tice's parents, Debra and Marc Tice, said they had received information that before the rebels ousted Assad's government, their son not only was alive but was being well cared-for. However, they said, they had no clarity about who was holding their son.
“We’re just waiting to see, because they’re attending to the prisons little by little — and some of the larger prisons, we know those are not places that Austin is,” Debra Tice said.
President Joe Biden, offering a sliver of hope, said Sunday, “We think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet.”
Speaking at an Atlantic Council event in Washington on Wednesday, Jen Daskal, deputy assistant to the president and deputy homeland security adviser, said the Biden administration was open to talking to anyone who might have information about Tice.
Asked whether the administration would be willing to work with Islamist rebel forces in Syria who recently toppled the Assad regime to secure Tice's freedom, Daskal said, “We are extremely focused on doing everything possible we can to locate Austin Tice and are talking to anybody who is willing to talk to us, who might have information."
The administration is “extraordinarily focused on that effort," she said, without elaborating.
Syria’s new rebel coalition is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a group that emerged from an Al Qaeda affiliate. HTS’ leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, was among those battling American forces in Iraq following their 2003 invasion, with the State Department offering a $10 million bounty for information about him.
In more recent years, Jolani has tried to project a more moderate image, including cutting ties with Al Qaeda and renouncing international extremism.
While Biden welcomed Assad’s ouster, he has also expressed caution at a “moment of risk and uncertainty as we all turn to the question of what comes next.”
Richard Engel, Gabe Joselow and Ammar Cheikh Omar reported from Damascus. Chantal Da Silva reported from London.
