WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials are doing everything they can to learn as much as possible about Austin Tice, the American journalist captured in Syria 12 years ago, White House spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.
Kirby told reporters that the situation in Syria “could provide us with an opportunity to gather more information about him, his whereabouts and his condition,” adding that U.S. officials believed Tice was still alive and had no information proving otherwise.
Tice, a former U.S. Marine and freelance journalist, was 31 when he was kidnapped in August 2012 while in Damascus covering the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was deposed by Syrian rebels who seized the capital Damascus on Sunday. names. Syria had denied he was being held.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Jarrett Renshaw and Katharine Jackson)
