Roger Carstens, the Biden administration's top official for Americans Detained Abroad, arrived Friday in Damascus, Syria, for a high-risk mission: making the first face-to-face contact with the caretaker government and asking for help find American journalist Austin Tice is missing.
Tice was kidnapped in Syria 12 years ago during the civil war and brutal the now deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. For years, US officials have said they do not know for sure whether Tice is still alive, where he is being held or by whom.
The State Department's top diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Northeast Affairs, accompanied Carstens to Damascus in a move of wider outreach to Hay'at Tahrir al-Shamknown as HTS, the rebel group that recently overthrew the Assad regime and is emerging as a major power.
Senior Near Eastern Adviser Daniel Rubinstein was also with the delegation. They are the first American diplomats to visit Damascus in more than ten years, according to a State Department spokesman.
They plan to meet with HTS representatives to discuss transfer principles agreed with the US and regional partners in Aqaba, Jordan, the spokesman said. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken he traveled to Aqaba last week to meet with Middle East leaders and discuss the situation in Syria.
While searching for and rescuing Tice and other American citizens who disappeared under the Assad regime The final goal, US officials are lowering expectations for progress on this trip. Multiple sources told CBS News that Carstens and Leaf's mission is to convey US interests to HTS senior leaders, and learn whatever they can about Tice.
Rubinstein will lead US diplomacy in Syria, communicating directly with the Syrian people and major parties in Syria, a State Department spokesman said.
The diplomatic outreach to HTS comes in a volatile, war-torn region at an uncertain time. Two sources even compared the potential threat to diplomacy to a trip used by the late US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who led an attack on rebels in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and was killed in a terrorist attack on a US diplomatic base and intelligence post.
US special operations forces known as JSOC provided security for the delegation as it traveled by vehicle across the Jordanian border and on the road to Damascus. The convoy received assurances from HTS that it would be given safe passage while in Syria, but there is still the threat of attacks by other terrorist groups, including ISIS.
CBS News suspended publication of this story due to security concerns at the request of the State Department.
Sending high-level American diplomats to Damascus represents an important step in reopening relations between the US and Syria after the fall of the Assad regime less than two weeks ago. Operations at the US embassy in Damascus have been suspended since 2012, shortly after the Assad regime brutally clamped down on an uprising that turned into a 14-year civil war and sent 13 million Syrians to flee from the country in one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in the world.
The US formally designated HTS, which had links to al Qaeda, as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018. Its leader, Mohammed al Jolani, was designated a terrorist by the US in 2013 and by then was providing time in a US prison in Iraq. .
Since defecting to Assad, HTS has publicly expressed interest in a new, more moderate path. Al Jolani even showed his name of war and he now uses his legal name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
US sanctions on HTS related to these terrorist designations complicate outreach somewhat, but have not stopped American officials from communicating directly with HTS under its leadership ' President Biden. Blinken recently confirmed that US officials were in contact with HTS representatives before Carstens and Leaf's visit.
“We have heard positive statements coming from Mr. Jolani, the head of HTS,” Blinken told Bloomberg News on Thursday. “But what everyone is focused on is what is happening on the ground, what are they doing? Are they working to build a movement in Syria that will everyone in?”
In that same interview, Blinken also appeared to threaten that the US could help lift UN-imposed sanctions on HTS and its leader, if HTS does so. would he call an inclusive non-sectarian government and hold elections eventually. The Biden administration is not expected to lift the US terrorism designation before the end of the president's term on January 20.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said on Thursday that about 2,000 US troops are currently inside Syria as part of the mission to defeat ISIS, far more than the 900 troops that the Biden administration had previously admitted. There are at least five US military bases in the north and south of the country.
The Biden administration is concerned about it thousands of ISIS prisoners could be held at a camp called al-Hol to be liberated. It is currently protected by the Syrian Democratic Forces, Kurdish allies of the US who oversee the newly powerful HTS. The situation on the ground is changing rapidly as Russia and Iran have withdrawn military aid from the Assad regime, which has reset the balance of power. Turkey, which has been an ally of the US at times, has been a tool for HTS and is emerging as a power broker.
Such a high-risk mission is unusual for the normally risk-averse Biden administration, which has regularly used diplomacy. Blinken approved Carstens and Leaf's trip and relevant transportation leaders were briefed about it days ago.
“I think it's important to have direct communication, it's important to speak as clearly as possible, to listen, to make sure we understand as best we can where they're going and where they want to go,” Blinken said Thursday.
At a press conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had not yet met with Assad, who fled to Russia when his regime fell earlier this month. Putin said he would ask Assad about Austin Tice when they meet.
Tice, a Marine Corps veteran, worked for several news organizations including CBS News.
