Nongovernmental workers and journalists have scoured prisons for clues about his fate in the absence of an official American presence in the country.
For years, the United States has collected tips about the whereabouts of Austin Tice, an American journalist who was abducted in Syria in 2012, briefly escaped and then vanished in that country’s gruesome prison system.
The list is long. A notorious security complex known as Branch 235, or Palestine Branch, where he was possibly held in solitary confinement. Sednaya prison’s Wing C. An underground facility in Latakia Province. Some of the most recent information about Mr. Tice indicated that he was in the basement of a Syrian Air Force Intelligence building.
After the Assad government collapsed this month, nongovernment organizations and journalists began scouring prisons and other secret sites for signs of Mr. Tice as the United States tries to aid the search with no official presence in the country.
The rebels who now control Syria have promised to help find Mr. Tice. But documents holding potential clues remain untouched at prisons and military locations in Damascus, or they were destroyed.
“We need to get in there and run down all possible leads,” said Andrew J. Tabler, who was the director for Syria on the U.S. National Security Council in 2019. “Of course they wrote all this stuff down. You’re going to find tons of stuff.”
“They wrote everything down,” he added. “It’s a sick regime.”
Former Syrian officials who were possibly involved in Mr. Tice’s abduction and captivity have fled along with others who could provide information. Syria’s ousted president, Bashar al-Assad, and key aides escaped to Russia. The location of others remains unknown.
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