The Biden Administration is facing new pressure from the family of Austin Tice, a journalist from Houston and member of the U.S. Marine Corps who was abducted in Syria over a decade years ago, to achieve his release. The Tices were scheduled to meet with the National Security Council at the White House on Friday.
On August 14, 2012, Tice vanished from a checkpoint west of Damascus. Her work had appeared in a number of newspapers, including The Washington Post and McClatchy. He was seen being held by armed guys in a video that was made public soon after.
The family has new information for the administration of President Joe Biden, who will be replaced in January by President-elect Donald Trump, according to Austin’s sister Naomi Tice.
“We are so happy to be able to be able to say that we can independently confirm what President Biden has been consistently saying, which is that Austin is alive and well,” Tice added.
RELATED: Austin Tice’s family hopes for his homecoming ten years after he was kidnapped in Syria.
In an effort to achieve Austin Tice’s release, the Tice family has collaborated with the Obama, Biden, and early Trump administrations. The governments of Syria and the United States do not currently have direct communication. Six months prior to Tice’s abduction, the United States shut down its embassy in Damascus. In 2014, it mandated the closure of the Syrian embassy in Washington, D.C.
“We realize that this is an incredibly crucial moment, an incredibly pivotal moment, and so our goal now is for President Biden to take that moment, to pick up the phone, to call (Syrian President Bashar al-)Assad, and to work and do what needs to be done to bring my brother home,” stated Jonathan Tice-Zelaya. “There are a couple of months left in this administration, and so our push is to encourage him to do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary to do this now and bring him home now.”
No American citizens are being held by the Syrian regime.Earlier this year, the death of Majd Kamalmaz, a Texas psychologist who vanished in Syria in 2017, was confirmed.
In recent weeks, the protracted Syrian Civil War has erupted once again. The second-largest city in the nation, Aleppo, has been overrun by rebel troops, who have now advanced into Hama and are within striking distance of Damascus.
“What’s happening in Syria is especially concerning,” stated Naomi Tice. “Right now, most of the activity is in a different region than where we believe Austin is held.”
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