The long search

The name of US journalist Austin Tice has recently resurfaced. His mother has claimed he remains alive and has called on the US to press Damascus for his release. This month rumours surfaced that his body was found in a northern Syrian graveyard, but contradictory local reports dispute the claim.

Since his arrest on Aug. 14, 2012, there has been no proof that the US journalist, a correspondent for several media outlets including “The Washington Post,” remains alive. The sole exception is an official video released several weeks later making it appear the journalist was held by a rebel fundamentalist group.

“The Post” reported more than a decade later on Aug. 13, 2025, that Tice “was held in a makeshift jail controlled by a top Syrian security official, [which consisted of] a row of small cells with metal doors off a street in western Damascus.” In October after requesting soap, a towel, something to read, he “made a desperate bid for freedom. He squeezed his body through the window of his cell and threw the towel over an exterior wall topped with shards of glass.” However, his escape that October was short-lived as he was soon recaptured. Since then, Tice’s family and three American presidents have tried in vain to locate him.

Although visas were readily available to journalists who applied, including me, he chose to enter Syria illegally and travel to the rebel held suburb of Daraya. He went missing at a checkpoint while attempting to leave the country. Detailed investigations into his disappearance have been conducted by Reporters Without Borders, US National Public Radio and the BBC.

One of Austin’s sisters, Naomi Tice said the family has information that he may be in the hands of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which was allied to the Assad regime. She said Austin Tice might have been transferred to Iran during or following the fall of Bashar al Assad in late 2024. However, Naomi Tice stated that “Assad consistently said that he did not have Austin, and he has really held strong on that message....we also know that Iran manages some of the detention facilities in Syria. And so, that technicality could be one of the reasons why Assad said that he didn’t have them because Iran was technically in control of them at the time.”

A search for former political prisoners after the Assad regime fell failed to reveal Austin Tice’s whereabouts. “With the regime change, we do think, at that point, Austin might have been brought over to Iran during that time,” Naomi Tice said. “Once again, this isn’t confirmed, but we have strong reason to believe that might be the case.”

Born in 1981 in Texas, Austin Tice was raised in Houston where he dreamed of becoming an international correspondent for NPR. In 1997, he enrolled at the University of Houston but transferred to Georgetown where he graduated in 2002. He joined the US Marine Corps as an infantry officer and served in Afghanistan and Iraq. While he left active duty as a captain, he remained in the Marine Corps Reserve. After enrolling at Georgetown University Law Centre, Tice completed two years of study before going to Syria. As Tice became one of the first US correspondents to report on the fighting, his coverage was cited, along with that of other reporters, as contributing to McClatchy winning a George Polk Award for reporting wars for its coverage of Syria’s civil war. The award was founded in 1949 in memory of George Polk, a CBS News correspondent murdered in Greece in 1948 while covering the Greek Civil War.

University undergraduate, neophyte Tice had no training in journalism or experience in reporting foreign events, was not well versed in the history and politics of the country he covered and did not understand the language spoken there. Tice took a dangerous shortcut. Even with proper qualifications it is difficult if not impossible to become a foreign correspondent. This is why youngsters can risk life and limb to achieve this goal which, in my view, is the best job in the world.

However, jobs are rare as agencies and networks dominate the scene and fewer other media employ full-time or part-time overseas staff than in the past. An alert foreign correspondent is a news junkie following every twist and turn of the news. Seeking to break into the profession, freelancers initially fund their own careers and are obliged to pitch coverage to editors restrained by accountants with limited budgets. The work is 24/7, unpredictable, emotionally and physically taxing.

Photo: TNS