Roger Carstens, the Biden administration’s prime official for liberating Americans held abroad, on Friday arrived in Damascus, Syria, for a high-risk mission: making the primary identified face-to-face contact with the caretaker authorities and asking for assist discovering missing American journalist Austin Tice.
Tice was kidnapped in Syria 12 years in the past throughout the civil conflict and brutal reign of now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. For years, U.S. officers have stated they have no idea with certainty whether or not Tice continues to be alive, the place he’s being held or by whom.
The State Department’s prime diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, accompanied Carstens to Damascus as a gesture of broader outreach to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, often called HTS, the insurgent group that lately overthrew Assad’s regime and is rising as a number one energy.
Near East Senior Adviser Daniel Rubinstein was additionally with the delegation. They are the primary American diplomats to go to Damascus in over a decade, based on a State Department spokesperson.
They plan to fulfill with HTS representatives to debate transition rules endorsed by the U.S. and regional companions in Aqaba, Jordan, the spokesperson stated. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Aqaba final week to fulfill with Middle East leaders and focus on the scenario in Syria.
While discovering and liberating Tice and different American residents who disappeared underneath the Assad regime is the last word objective, U.S. officers are downplaying expectations of a breakthrough on this journey. Multiple sources instructed CBS News that Carstens and Leaf’s intent is to convey U.S. pursuits to senior HTS leaders, and study something they’ll about Tice.
Rubinstein will lead the U.S. diplomacy in Syria, participating instantly with the Syrian individuals and key events in Syria, the State Department spokesperson added.
Diplomatic outreach to HTS is available in a risky, war-torn area at an unsure second. Two sources even in contrast the potential hazard to the expeditionary diplomacy practiced by the late U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who led outreach to rebels in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and was killed in a terrorist assault on a U.S. diplomatic compound and intelligence submit.
U.S. particular operations forces often called JSOC offered safety for the delegation as they traveled by automobile throughout the Jordanian border and on the street to Damascus. The convoy was given assurances by HTS that it could be granted protected passage whereas in Syria, however there stays a risk of assaults by different terrorist teams, together with ISIS.
CBS News withheld publication of this story for safety considerations on the State Department’s request.
Sending high-level American diplomats to Damascus represents a big step in reopening U.S.-Syria relations following the autumn of the Assad regime lower than two weeks in the past. Operations on the U.S. embassy in Damascus have been suspended since 2012, shortly after the Assad regime brutally repressed an rebellion that grew to become a 14-year civil conflict and spawned 13 million Syrians to flee the nation in one of many largest humanitarian disasters on this planet.
The U.S. formally designated HTS, which had ties to al Qaeda, as a international terrorist group in 2018. Its chief, Mohammed al Jolani, was designated as a terrorist by the US in 2013 and previous to that served time in a US jail in Iraq.
Since toppling Assad, HTS has publicly signaled curiosity in a brand new extra reasonable trajectory. Al Jolani even shed his nom de guerre and now makes use of his authorized title, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
U.S. sanctions on HTS linked to these terrorist designations complicate outreach considerably, however they have not prevented American officers from making direct contact with HTS on the route of President Biden. Blinken lately confirmed that U.S. officers had been in contact with HTS representatives previous to Carstens and Leaf’s go to.
“We’ve heard constructive statements coming from Mr. Jolani, the chief of HTS,” Blinken instructed Bloomberg News on Thursday. “But what everybody is targeted on is what’s really taking place on the bottom, what are they doing? Are they working to construct a transition in Syria that brings everybody in?”
In that very same interview, Blinken additionally appeared to dangle the likelihood that the U.S. may assist raise sanctions on HTS and its chief imposed by the United Nations, if HTS builds what he referred to as an inclusive nonsectarian authorities and finally holds elections. The Biden administration will not be anticipated to raise the U.S. terrorist designation earlier than the tip of the president’s time period on January twentieth.
Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder disclosed Thursday that the U.S. presently has roughly 2,000 US troops within Syria as a part of the mission to defeat ISIS, a far greater quantity than the 900 troops the Biden administration had beforehand acknowledged. There are not less than 5 U.S. navy bases within the north and south of the nation.
The Biden administration is worried that thousands of ISIS prisoners held at a camp often called al-Hol might be freed. It is presently guarded by the Syrian Democratic forces, Kurdish allies of the U.S. who’re cautious of the newly-powerful HTS. The scenario on the bottom is quickly altering since Russia and Iran withdrew navy assist from the Assad regime, which has reset the stability of energy. Turkey, which has been a generally problematic U.S. ally, has been a conduit to HTS and is rising as an influence dealer.
A high-risk mission like that is uncommon for the sometimes danger averse Biden administration, which has exercised constantly restrained diplomacy. Blinken accepted Carstens and Leaf’s journey and related congressional leaders had been briefed on it days in the past.
“I believe it is necessary to have direct communication, it is necessary to talk as clearly as potential, to pay attention, to be sure that we perceive as finest we are able to the place they are going and the place they wish to go,” Blinken stated Thursday.
At a news conference in Moscow Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated he had not but met with Assad, who fled to Russia when his regime fell earlier this month. Putin added that he would ask Assad about Austin Tice once they do meet.
Tice, a Marine Corps veteran, labored for a number of information organizations together with CBS News.
