Washington D.C. – Washington Post, Aug. 13, 2025
The Post uncovered new details and previously unreported efforts to find the reporter kidnapped in Syria.
The American journalist was held in a makeshift jail controlled by a top Syrian security official, a row of small cells with metal doors off a street in western Damascus. The prisoner had a request for his captors: Could he have soap, a towel, something to read?
Days later, Austin Tice 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.
A reporter known for his courage in covering Syria’s brutal civil war and a Marine veteran who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tice, 31, had been detained in mid-August 2012 near the Syrian capital.
His escape that October was short-lived, according to U.S. and Syrian officials, as well as Tice’s interrogator. Tice’s captors put out an alert to security services across Damascus and swiftly recaptured him. From there, he would disappear into one of the world’s most secretive and repressive regimes.
Ever since, Tice’s family and three American presidents have tried to find him, an agonizing endeavor where at times the only constant appeared to be the swirl of unconfirmed information and the obduracy of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Despite intensive efforts to secure Tice’s release or confirm his status, the truth about his fate remains elusive, making his case one of the most difficult U.S. officials say they have ever encountered.
When the Assad regime crumbled in December 2024 after a whirlwind rebel advance, Tice’s family saw an opening at last. But after the prisons opened, there was no sign of Tice, alive or dead.
