A journalist and former US Marine missing in Syria since 2012 may still be alive and President Joe Biden declared he would “get him back” home.
The outgoing president told reporters on Sunday that he believes journalist Austin Tice is still alive, and with the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Biden expressed hope that he can be found and brought back home to the U.S.
Biden emerged Sunday to call the fall of the Syrian leader a “moment of historic opportunity” after rebel forces took control of the country.
“At long last, the Assad regime has fallen,” he said.
Before exiting, reporters asked the lame-duck president about Tice’s whereabouts.
Reporter: What does US know about where Austin Tice might be?
Biden: We believe he’s alive. We think we can get him back… pic.twitter.com/b87HxRtihK
— David Jim (@DavidB85543) December 9, 2024
“We believe he’s alive,” Biden said after pausing in the doorway and turning around.
“We think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet. And Assad should be held accountable,” he added as he turned again to leave.
“Have you directed an operation to go get him?” another reporter asked.
“Get who?” Biden said as he turned back around.
“Austin Tice,” the reporter noted, reminding Biden who they had just been speaking about.
“We want to get him out,” Biden replied. “We have to identify where he is.”
Tice had worked with CBS News, The Washington Post, and McClatchy, among other organizations. He was reporting on the Syrian civil war when he disappeared on Aug. 14, 2012.
“We have from a significant source that has already been vetted all over our government, Austin Tice is alive, Austin Tice is treated well. And there is no doubt about that,” his mother, Debra Tice, said at a news conference earlier this month.
Biden has said the U.S. knows “with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime” even though no one ever claimed responsibility for his disappearance. His mother noted that the family has “always known” the Syrian government was behind it.
“There just seems to be a massive disconnect between what President Biden has dictated for Austin in terms of doing everything that we can to bring him home, and then the actions and the behavior of the people that sit just below him,” his brother Simon Tice had said.
The family traveled to Washington, D.C., and met with national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the State Department, and the National Security Council. Tice’s mother looked forward to President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House, saying that during his first term, he “had an obsession” with getting her son home.
However, “Mike Pompeo and John Bolton did all they could to keep that from happening,” she said, according to CBS News.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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