US hostage envoy in Beirut to seek information on missing journalist Austin Tice

Associated Press The Associated Press

Marc Tice, left, and Debra Tice, the parents of Austin Tice, a journalist who was kidnapped in Syria, update the media about their son's condition as they continue to push for his release, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Jacquelyn Martin]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator is in Beirut in hopes of collecting information on the whereabouts of Austin Tice, an American journalist missing in Syria for 12 years, the State Department said Monday.

Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, is talking to officials in the region following the overthrow of Bashar Assad’s government to find out where Tice is and “get him home as soon as possible,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Monday.

Lebanon has been involved for years in mediating talks about Tice.

President Joe Biden said Sunday that his administration believed Tice was alive and was committed to bringing him home, though he also acknowledged that “we have no direct evidence” of his status.

Tice, who has had his work published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus as the Syrian civil war intensified.

A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held by armed men and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since. Syria has publicly denied that it was holding him.