WASHINGTON — (AP) — The mother of Austin Tice, an American journalist missing in Syria for more than a decade, said Friday that she was confident her son was alive, citing information she said had come from a "significant source" that she did not identify but said had been vetted by the U.S. government and treated as credible.
“He is being cared for and he is well — we do know that,” Debra Tice said.
Tice's mother and other relatives spoke at an event Friday following a White House meeting with national security officials that unfolded amid ongoing turmoil in Syria, as insurgent fighters who have already captured the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, are pressing their march against President Bashar Assad's forces.
“The news we're hearing from the Middle East is the kind of thing that can unsettle a mom,” Debra Tice said, later adding, “When I think about war, I never have a happy moment.”
Austin Tice's sister, Naomi, said she asked officials whether there was a way to leverage the unrest to help secure Austin's freedom. “We were basically just told that we need to wait and see how it pans out” — a response she said may have been “understandable” but was “beyond frustrating.”
Tice's father, Marc, echoed that sentiment, noting that meetings this week with White House and State Department officials had devolved into finger-pointing and frustration.
“We have seen what real commitment looks like. We've seen it in Russia. We've seen it in China, we've seen in Venezuela, we see it in Gaza," he said, referring to places where hostages have been released in recent months. “And we've yet to see it for us.”
He, too, declined to speak about the information pointing to his son being alive but said, “We are confident that this information is fresh. It indicated as late as earlier this year that Austin is alive and being cared for. And we do hope to make as much of this public as we can.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed Friday that the Tice family had met with Biden administration national security adviser Jake Sullivan, but said she didn't know specifics of what was said.
“Austin Tice's family, I can't even imagine what they're going through,” she said.
Tice, who is from Houston and whose work had been published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other outlets, disappeared in August 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus.
A video released weeks later 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.
In the final months of the Trump administration, two U.S. officials — the government's top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, and Kash Patel, now Trump's pick to lead the FBI — made a secret visit to Damascus to seek information on Tice and other Americans who have disappeared in Syria.
It was the highest-level talk in years between the U.S. and Assad's government, though Syrian officials offered no meaningful information on Tice.