Lebanese general renews mediation over missing US journalist

A Lebanese safety chief has met U.S. officers in Washington as a part of mediation between Washington and Damascus for the discharge of an American journalist lacking in Syria, the top of a mission that assists hostages mentioned Wednesday.

Nizar Zakka, President of the U.S.-based Hostage Support Worldwide, informed The Related Press by phone that Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim was discussing the destiny of six Individuals held within the Center East, however that the “main goal” of his mission is journalist Austin Tice who went lacking close to the Syrian capital of Damascus a decade in the past.

Zakka, who met Ibrahim in Washington on Tuesday, mentioned Biden administration officers wouldn’t have invited the Lebanese official to Washington had they not reached one thing “very critical” on the subject of the Tice case. He says there are “critical threads” within the case, with out elaborating. Tice’s destiny stays unknown.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden met Tice’s mother and father and reiterated his dedication to proceed to work by way of all out there avenues to safe “Austin’s lengthy overdue return to his household.”

Tice, who’s from Houston and whose work had been revealed by The Washington Put up, McClatchy newspapers and different shops, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested space west of Damascus in August. 2012.

Zakka mentioned the six Individuals embody Tice and Majd Kamalmaz, a psychologist from Virginia who vanished in Syria in 2017. The 4 others are held in Iran, in line with Zakka, who himself was held in Iran for years earlier than Ibrahim mediated his launch in 2019.

Ibrahim, the chief of Lebanon’s Normal Safety Directorate, has mediated sophisticated hostage releases previously. He informed Lebanon’s LBC TV that his work relating to American hostages “had slowed down throughout the transitional interval between two administrations” in Washington.

“There’s a determination now to hurry up the method,” Ibrahim added.

State Division spokesman Ned Worth mentioned on Tuesday that U.S. officers “have a tendency to not converse of our efforts in public earlier than Individuals come dwelling in order to not jeopardize our efforts exactly to deliver them dwelling.”

He added that U.S. officers “are deeply engaged on this case.”

Within the last months of the Trump administration, two U.S. officers — together with the federal government’s prime hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens — made a secret go to to Damascus to hunt info on Tice and different Individuals who’ve disappeared in Syria. It was the highest-level discuss in years between the US and the federal government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, although Syrian officers provided no significant info on Tice.

4 years in the past, the then-U.S. envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, mentioned Tice is believed to be alive and held hostage in Syria. He didn’t say why officers consider this or who could be holding him.

Tice went lacking shortly after his thirty first birthday on Aug. 14, 2012. A video launched a month later confirmed him blindfolded and held by armed males, saying “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since.

In late April, the U.S. secured the discharge of Trevor Reed, a U.S. Marine veteran detained in Russia for almost three years, as a part of a prisoner swap.

In 2019, Ibrahim’s mediation led to the discharge of U.S. citizen Samuel Goodwin after being held for 2 months in Syria.

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Related Press author Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.