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Roger Carstens, the top official in the Biden administration for the release of Americans detained abroad, arrived in Damascus, Syria, on Friday on a high-risk mission: He made the first known face-to-face contact with the interim government and asked for help in finding missing American journalist Austin Tice.
Tice was kidnapped in Syria 12 years ago during the civil war and brutal rule the now deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. For years, US officials have said they don’t know for sure whether Tice is still alive, where he is being held or who is holding him.
The State Department’s top 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. Hay’at Tahrir al-Shamknown as HTS, the rebel group that recently toppled the Assad regime and is emerging as a leading force.
Senior Middle East Adviser Daniel Rubinstein was also with the delegation. They are the first American diplomats to visit Damascus in more than ten years, a State Department spokesman said.
They plan to meet with HTS representatives to discuss transitional principles approved by the US and regional partners in Aqaba, Jordan, the spokesman said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Aqaba last week to meet with Middle East leaders to discuss the situation in Syria.
While they were finding and freeing Tice and other American citizens who disappeared under Assad’s regime is the ultimate goal, US officials are playing down expectations of a breakthrough along the way. Multiple sources told CBS News that Carstens and Leaf’s intent is to convey American interests to senior HTS leaders and learn all they can about Tice.
Rubinstein will lead US diplomacy in Syria, working directly with the Syrian people and key parties in Syria, the State Department spokesman added.
The diplomatic approach to HTS comes at an uncertain time in the volatile, war-torn region. The two sources even compared the potential danger of expeditionary diplomacy practiced by the late US ambassador Christopher Stevens, who led the fight against insurgents in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 and was killed in a terrorist attack on a US diplomatic compound and intelligence post.
US special operations forces known as JSOC secured the delegation as it traveled by vehicle across the Jordanian border and en route to Damascus. HTS has given assurances to the convoy that it will be granted safe passage while in Syria, but the threat of attacks by other terrorist groups, including ISIS, remains.
CBS News has withheld publication of this story for security reasons at the request of the State Department.
The dispatch of high-level US diplomats to Damascus represents a significant step in reopening US-Syrian relations after the fall of the Assad regime less than two weeks ago. Operations at the US embassy in Damascus have been suspended since 2012, shortly after the Assad regime brutally crushed an uprising that turned into a 14-year civil war and sent 13 million Syrians fleeing the country in one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
In 2018, the US officially designated HTS, which had ties to Al Qaeda, as a foreign terrorist organization. Its leader, Mohammed al-Jolani, was declared a terrorist by the USA in 2013, and before that he served a sentence in an American prison in Iraq.
Since the ouster of Assad, HTS has publicly signaled an interest in a new, more moderate trajectory. Al Jolani even spilled his military name and now uses his official name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
U.S. sanctions against HTS associated with these terrorist designations somewhat complicate contact with the public, but have not prevented U.S. officials from directly contacting HTS as directed by President Biden. Blinken recently confirmed that US officials had been in contact with HTS representatives prior to Carstens and Leaf’s visit.
“We have heard positive statements from Mr. Jolani, the head of HTS,” Blinken told Bloomberg News on Thursday. “But what everyone is focused on is what is actually happening on the ground, what are they doing? Are they working to build a transition in Syria that will bring everyone together?”
In that same interview, Blinken also appeared to consider the possibility that the US could help lift United Nations sanctions on HTS and its leader if HTS builds what he called an inclusive non-sectarian government and eventually holds elections. The Biden administration is not expected to lift the US terrorist designation before the end of his term on January 20.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder revealed Thursday that the US currently has approximately 2,000 US troops inside Syria as part of the mission to defeat ISIS, far higher than the 900 troops previously acknowledged by the Biden administration. There are at least five American military bases in the north and south of the country.
The Biden administration is worried about that thousands of ISIS prisoners held in the camp known as al-Hol could be freed. It is currently guarded by the Syrian Democratic Forces, Kurdish allies of the US who are wary of the newly powerful HTS. The situation on the ground has been changing rapidly since Russia and Iran withdrew their military support for the Assad regime, resetting the balance of power. Turkey, a sometimes problematic US ally, has been a conduit for HTS and is emerging as a powerful broker.
A high-risk mission like this is unusual for the typically risk-averse Biden administration, which has consistently pursued low-key diplomacy. Carstens and Leaf’s trip was approved by Blinken, and relevant congressional leaders were notified a few days ago.
“I think it’s important to have direct communication, it’s important to speak as clearly as possible, to listen, to make sure we have the best understanding of where they’re going and where they want to go,” Blinken said Thursday.
On a press conference on Thursday in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had not yet met with Assad, who fled to Russia when his regime fell earlier this month. Putin added that he would ask Assad about Austin Tice when they meet.
Tice, a Marine Corps veteran, has worked for multiple news outlets including CBS News.
