Washington D.C. – The Economist, June 11, 2025
A top official in the Assad regime says it seized the American
In the seven months since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, one name has stayed near the top of the Trump Administration’s agenda: Austin Tice. The American citizen vanished in 2012 in a Damascus suburb. During his first term President Donald Trump made overtures to the Assad regime about finding and returning Mr Tice.
In recent months American officials have raised his fate in talks with Syria’s new leadership, led by its interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. The American side still insists that Mr Tice may be alive and says there is no evidence of his death. Now The Economist has spoken with an Assad-regime insider and gained one of the first authoritative public accounts of the abduction and an insight into one of the regime’s darkest secrets.
Our source is Safwan Bahloul, a high-ranking general in Mr Assad’s security state. He has chosen to speak out and share details of Mr Tice’s ordeal. He confirms that Mr Tice was held not by rebel groups, but rather by the Syrian state, with the dictator’s full knowledge, and was held for some time in a compound of Mr Assad’s most trusted aide. The general also reveals his own culpability.
In the summer of 2012, Bassam al-Hassan, a shadowy adviser in Mr Assad’s inner circle, learned that Mr Tice was in the suburbs of Damascus. He set in motion a plan to seize him, according to General Bahloul. A freelance journalist contributing to the Washington Post, Mr Tice was preparing to take a break in Lebanon after a gruelling period reporting in rebel-held Syria. He sought a fixer to try to cross the border, and it turned out the fixer was working for Mr Hassan, the general claims.
