Joe Biden believes missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared 12 years ago near the Syrian capital, is alive, and said that Washington is committed to bringing him home after Bashar al-Assad’s ousting from power.
“We think we can get him back,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Sunday, while acknowledging that “we have no direct evidence” of his status.
Biden said officials must still identify exactly where Tice is after his disappearance in August 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus. “We’ve remained committed to returning him to his family,” he said.
Tice, who is from Houston, has had his work published by the Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other outlets.
In a statement to the Post, his parents, Marc and Debra Tice on Sunday said they were “eagerly anticipating seeing Austin walk free”, adding: “We are asking anyone who can do so to please assist Austin so he can safely return home to his family.”
The family said his location remained unclear, and a US official said there was no new evidence that Tice was alive, but that they continued to operate under the assumption that he was. The US would continue to work to identify where he is and to try to bring him home, the official added.
On Friday, Debra Tice told a news conference in Washington that the family had information from a “significant source”, establishing that her son was alive. “He is being cared for and he is well – we do know that,” she said.
Tice’s sister Naomi Tice said in an interview with the Post: “In chaos, there is opportunity. And I think for a lot of us, that’s really what we’re focusing on right now … this is such an opportunity to bring Austin home.”
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.
The Tice family met this week with officials at the state department and the White House.
Mouaz Moustafa from non-profit Syrian Emergency Task Force told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning that rebel groups were working to find Tice. “He’s a hero. He went to cover the plight of the Syrian people from what Assad, Iran and Russia have been doing to them. And God willing, we bring him home alive, but we need to find him and bring him to his mom, no matter what. And the Syrians owe him a debt forever,” Moustafa said.
With Associated Press
