US officials travel to Syria in search of missing Americans, meet with rebel leaders

Top U.S. officials are in Syria making the first face-to-face contact with rebel groups that took over the country in a lightning offensive earlier this month, their mission aimed at searching for kidnapped American journalist Austin Tice and other missing Americans.

Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, Near East senior advisor Daniel Rubinstein and U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs Roger Carstens are in the region, although a press conference in Damascus was canceled on Friday over security concerns, a U.S. official announced.

They are the first American diplomats to visit Syria since long-time dictator, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus earlier this month, amid a takeover of the country led by the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, known as HTS.

A State Department Spokesperson told The Hill that the U.S. officials are hoping to uncover information about the fate of Tice, who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012 when he went to report on the civil war.

They are also looking for information on Majd Kamalmaz, a psychologist who traveled to Syria in 2017 and disappeared a day after his arrival. He was stopped at a Syrian government checkpoint in Mezzeh, a suburb of Damascus, and has not been seen or heard from since that day, according to an FBI notice.

The spokesperson said the U.S. officials are searching for information on other Americans who disappeared under the Assad regime but did not name them. Amid the rebel takeover, opposition forces liberated Assad’s notoriously hellish prisons, freeing unjustly detained individuals and that included a missing American, Travis Timmerman, and who was recently returned to the U.S.

A State Department spokesperson told The Hill that the U.S. officials are meeting with representatives from HTS to discuss their government transition plans.

The U.S., along with Arab, European and United Nations partners, released a set of “principles” last week outlining a peaceful transition to a Syrian-led, civilian government, protection of minority and responsible destruction of Assad’s chemical weapons as necessary to normalizing relations.

The U.S. has sanctions on HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani — also known as Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa — for terrorism. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the Biden administration is watching the actions of the group moving forward as it considers whether to lift any sanctions.

“What we’ve heard them say is positive. The question is: What are they actually going to do?” he said in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday.

The U.S. and its partners have called for al-Golani and all groups exercising control in Syria to ensure protection for minorities and women and move transition into a government that is “Syrian-led and Syrian-owned” and that includes the political participation of minorities and women.

The U.S. officials also met with Syrian civil society groups and Syria's Civil Defense, known as The White Helmets, who shared a photo of them together in a post on social platform X.

"We emphasized the need for regional actors to commit to a coordinated plan supporting political transition and reconstruction," the group wrote alongside the photo.

"Discussions also covered addressing challenges in northeast Syria while safeguarding Syria’s unity and sovereignty, ensuring equal citizenship rights for all components of the Syrian people, and paving the way for a just and inclusive future," they continued. "We also presented the White Helmets’ response to the evolving context through our emergency, resilience, and justice programs."

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