The kidnapping of US journalist Austin Tice in Syria in 2012 was a calculated operation planned for over a month and sanctioned by Bashar al-Assad, a new BBC investigation has found.
Tice, a former US Marine captain and Georgetown law student reporting on Syria’s civil war for the Washington Post, disappeared in August 2012. For years it was believed he and his driver had stumbled on a regime checkpoint, but the BBC says that was not the case.
In its podcast “Where is Austin Tice?”, the BBC said it spoke to several regime members involved, including a former pro-Assad National Defence Forces (NDF) militia member identified as Abu Ali. According to him, the plot began when Tice’s driver, who had been passing information to the regime, told senior NDF figure Sakr Rustom that Tice was reporting from rebel-held areas. Rustom is the nephew of Bassam al-Hassan, one of Assad’s most trusted security chiefs and head of the NDF.
Abu Ali claims the information was passed to Hassan, who then called Assad. “Bring him to us,” Assad allegedly replied. Tice was not taken immediately. The driver suggested they keep watching him, later claiming Tice looked more like CIA than journalist because he sometimes shared military experience with rebel fighters. The BBC said it found no evidence of that and a US official denied it.
In the days before his disappearance, the driver secretly took Tice’s backpack with his MacBook and satellite transmitter for operatives to search. On August 11, 2012, Tice celebrated his 31st birthday at a rebel safehouse near Assad’s palace, calling it “Hands down, best birthday ever” in his final tweet. He planned to leave for Lebanon but was driven instead to a state facility in Tahouneh on the outskirts of Damascus.
At the gates the driver pulled a gun, Abu Ali said. Tice initially laughed, thinking it was a joke, then offered his chequebook and pleaded with him to name his price. NDF members then seized him and covered his eyes. Hassan immediately called Assad to say they had the American.
The driver has been identified as Hamid Abu Obeid, from a Palestinian refugee family in Homs. His family said he was promised citizenship, a house, a passport and a weapon – huge rewards under Syrian law that denies Palestinians citizenship – but only got a pistol. He has since disappeared after being threatened by a man who knew of his role, his wife said. Masked men later took his laptop and devices.
Tice was last seen in a blindfolded video weeks after his capture. After the regime fell 12 years later, tens of thousands emerged from prisons, but Tice did not. The BBC said it searched suspected holding sites for over a month and found hundreds of pages of secret files proving the regime held him. A former commander claimed Tice was executed, but no remains have been found.
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