Roger Carstens, the Biden administration’s prime official for releasing Individuals held abroad, on Friday arrived in Damascus, Syria, for a high-risk mission: making the primary recognized face-to-face contact with the caretaker authorities and asking for assist discovering lacking American journalist Austin Tice.
Tice was kidnapped in Syria 12 years in the past throughout the civil warfare and brutal reign of now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. For years, U.S. officers have mentioned 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 Division’s prime diplomat for the Center East, Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Close to Japanese Affairs, accompanied Carstens to Damascus as a gesture of broader outreach to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, generally known as HTS, the insurgent group that just lately overthrew Assad’s regime and is rising as a number one energy.
Close to East Senior Adviser Daniel Rubinstein was additionally with the delegation. They’re the primary American diplomats to go to Damascus in over a decade, in line with a State Division spokesperson.
They plan to fulfill with HTS representatives to debate transition ideas endorsed by the U.S. and regional companions in Aqaba, Jordan, the spokesperson mentioned. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Aqaba final week to fulfill with Center East leaders and focus on the state of affairs in Syria.
Whereas discovering and releasing Tice and different Americans who disappeared beneath the Assad regime is the last word aim, U.S. officers are downplaying expectations of a breakthrough on this journey. A number of sources advised CBS Information that Carstens and Leaf’s intent is to convey U.S. pursuits to senior HTS leaders, and be taught something they’ll about Tice.
Rubinstein will lead the U.S. diplomacy in Syria, participating immediately with the Syrian individuals and key events in Syria, the State Division spokesperson added.
Diplomatic outreach to HTS is available in a unstable, 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 publish.
U.S. particular operations forces generally known as JSOC supplied safety for the delegation as they traveled by automobile throughout the Jordanian border and on the highway to Damascus. The convoy was given assurances by HTS that it might be granted secure passage whereas in Syria, however there stays a risk of assaults by different terrorist teams, together with ISIS.
CBS Information withheld publication of this story for safety issues on the State Division’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 warfare 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 average trajectory. Al Jolani even shed his nom de guerre and now makes use of his authorized identify, 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 path of President Biden. Blinken just lately confirmed that U.S. officers had been in contact with HTS representatives previous to Carstens and Leaf’s go to.
“We have heard optimistic statements coming from Mr. Jolani, the chief of HTS,” Blinken advised Bloomberg Information on Thursday. “However what everybody is targeted on is what’s really occurring 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 chance that the U.S. may assist carry 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 is just not anticipated to carry 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 inside 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 a minimum of 5 U.S. navy bases within the north and south of the nation.
The Biden administration is anxious that 1000’s of ISIS prisoners held at a camp generally known as al-Hol may very well be freed. It’s presently guarded by the Syrian Democratic forces, Kurdish allies of the U.S. who’re cautious of the newly-powerful HTS. The state of affairs on the bottom is quickly altering since Russia and Iran withdrew navy help from the Assad regime, which has reset the steadiness of energy. Turkey, which has been a typically 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 usually danger averse Biden administration, which has exercised constantly restrained diplomacy. Blinken authorized Carstens and Leaf’s journey and related congressional leaders had been briefed on it days in the past.
“I believe it is vital to have direct communication, it is vital to talk as clearly as doable, to pay attention, to ensure that we perceive as greatest we will the place they are going and the place they need to go,” Blinken mentioned Thursday.
At a information convention in Moscow Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned 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 Information.
