Roger Carstens, the Biden administration’s top official in charge of releasing Americans held overseas, traveled to Damascus, Syria, on Friday for a dangerous mission. He carried out a high-risk mission to make his first face-to-face contact with the Provisional Government and ask for their cooperation in the discovery. Missing American journalist Austin Tice.
Tice was abducted 12 years ago in Syria, a country that is suffering from civil war and brutal rule. Bashar al-Assad, now deposed Syrian dictator. U.S. officials have long said they don’t know for sure if Theis is still alive, where he is being held or by whom.
In an exclusive interview with Face the Nation from Amman, Jordan, on Friday after a visit to Syria, Carstens said that the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs had conducted a “joint search of the facility” today. revealed. Hayat Tahrir Al ShamThe rebel group known as HTS, which recently overthrew the Assad regime and is emerging as a major force, “everybody thought it would have something to do with Austin Tice.”
He declined to provide details or the results of the search, saying only that HTS was “helping us find Austin.”
“Over the past 12 years, we’ve gotten a lot of information pointing to different facilities,” Carstens said. “And as we whittled it down over 12 years, we came up with a priority list of about six sites. And of those six sites, this is the possibility that once held Austin. I felt it was the highest.
Carstens said he was “stunned” by the number of prisons being run by the Assad regime.
“So if you were running a country and you wanted to imprison your enemies, there would be one prison, and I think it’s not a secret,” Carstens said. “But I think the idea of having 35 or 40 secret prisons is very frightening and disturbing and yet in some ways fascinating.”
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, the State Department’s top diplomat for the Middle East, accompanied Mr. Carstens on his visit to Damascus as a sign of broad support for HTS.
Daniel Rubinstein, Senior Advisor for the Near East, also accompanied the delegation. They are the first American diplomats to visit Damascus in more than a decade, a State Department spokeswoman said.
The two leaders were scheduled to meet with HTS representatives in Aqaba, Jordan, to discuss transition principles supported by the United States and regional partners, the spokesperson said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Aqaba Last week, he was scheduled to meet with Middle Eastern leaders to discuss the situation in Syria.
State Department officials said security for the U.S. delegation was provided by DSS Mobile Security Deployments. U.S. special operations forces also assisted in vehicles en route to Damascus across the Jordanian border. Although the convoy was given assurances from HTS that it would be allowed safe passage during its stay in Syria, the threat of attacks by other terrorist organizations, including ISIS, remains.
At the request of the State Department, CBS News withheld this article due to security concerns.
while locating and freeing Tice and other American citizens who disappeared. assad regime Despite this being the ultimate goal, U.S. officials downplayed hopes that the trip would lead to a breakthrough. Sources told CBS News that Carstens and Reif’s goal was to convey U.S. interests to HTS executives and learn all they could about Tice.
Mr. Rubinstein will lead U.S. diplomacy in Syria and will interact directly with the Syrian people and key Syrian parties, the State Department spokesperson added.
Diplomatic support for HTS comes at a time of uncertainty in a volatile and war-torn region. Two sources pointed to the potential danger as a result of the late Christopher Christopher, who led an aid operation to the rebels in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and was killed in a terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic and intelligence site. He even compared it to the expeditionary diplomacy practiced by U.S. Ambassador Stevens.
Sending senior U.S. diplomats to Damascus is an important step in restarting U.S.-Syrian relations after the fall of Assad’s regime less than two weeks ago. The U.S. Embassy in Damascus opened in 2011, shortly after the Assad regime brutally cracked down on the uprising that became a 14-year civil war that caused 13 million Syrians to flee the country in one of the world’s biggest humanitarian disasters. Operations have been suspended since 2017.
In 2018, the United States officially designated the al-Qaeda-linked HTS as a foreign terrorist organization. Its leader, Mohammed al-Jolani, was designated a terrorist by the United States in 2013 and previously served time in a U.S. prison in Iraq. .
Since overthrowing the Assad regime, HTS has publicly expressed interest in a new, more moderate trajectory. Al-Jolani even abandoned the title de Guerre and now uses his legal name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
U.S. sanctions on HTS related to these terrorist designations somewhat complicate assistance efforts, but do not prevent U.S. officials from having direct contact with HTS as directed by President Biden. Blinken recently acknowledged that U.S. officials had been in contact with HTS representatives before Carstens and Rief’s visit.
“I have heard some positive comments from Mr. Jolani, the leader of HTS,” Blinken told Bloomberg News on Thursday. “But what everyone is looking at is what is actually happening on the ground, what are they doing? They are working to build a transition regime in Syria that brings everyone in. Is it there?”
In the same interview, Blinken also raised the possibility that the U.S. could help lift U.N. sanctions on HTS and its leaders if HTS forms what he calls an inclusive, non-sectarian government and eventually holds elections. It seemed to be flashing. The Biden administration has no plans to lift the US terrorist designation by the end of his presidential term on January 20th.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said Thursday that the United States currently has about 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria as part of the mission to defeat ISIS, something the Biden administration had previously acknowledged. This is a much larger number than the 900 soldiers that were present. There are at least five US military bases in the north and south of the country.
The Biden administration is concerned about Thousands of ISIS prisoners Those held in the camp known as al-Hol could be freed. It is currently guarded by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish ally of the United States who is wary of the newly powerful HTS. The situation on the ground has changed rapidly since Russia and Iran withdrew military support from the Assad regime and the balance of power was reset. Turkey has been a sometimes troubled ally of the United States, but it is emerging as a conduit and power broker for the HTS.
Such a high-risk mission is unusual for the typically risk-averse Biden administration, which has consistently pursued restrained diplomacy. Mr. Blinken authorized Mr. Carstens and Mr. Rief’s visit, and relevant congressional leaders were briefed on the matter several days earlier.
“I think it’s important to communicate directly, to speak as clearly as possible, to listen, to help them understand as much as possible where they’re going and where they want to go,” Blinken said Thursday. It’s important.”
in press conference On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Moscow that he had not yet met Assad, who defected to Russia when his regime collapsed earlier this month. Putin added that he would ask Assad about Austin Tice when he meets with him.
Tice is a Marine Corps veteran who worked for multiple news organizations, including CBS News.
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Margaret Brennan
