US scraps $10M bounty on HTS leader Golani after meeting in Damascus
A delegation including Assistant Secretary Barbara Leaf and hostage envoy Roger Carstens met with leaders of the powerful rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
WASHINGTON — A delegation of American diplomats arrived in Damascus on Friday to discuss Syria’s political transition with its interim leaders, and to seek information on journalist Austin Tice and other missing Americans.
The delegation included Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and Daniel Rubinstein, the State Department’s newly appointed special adviser on Syria. They are the first US diplomats to formally visit the Syrian capital in over a decade, less than two weeks after President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in a lightning offensive led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
In a phone briefing with reporters Friday, Leaf described the trip as an "important opportunity to engage with Syrians and hear from them directly during this watershed moment in Syria's history."
The US delegation sat down with HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani in a meeting Leaf described as “quite good, very productive [and] detailed.” She added that while Golani came off as pragmatic in their discussion, Washington will “judge by deeds, not just by words.”
Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that future US recognition of Syria’s government would be conditioned on its respect for the rights of women and minorities, ensuring the country isn’t used as a base for terrorism, destruction of the former regime’s chemical weapons and a transition process that leads to an “inclusive and representative government.”
US officials say early signs from HTS are encouraging, but remain skeptical of its promises of inclusive governance and tolerance for minorities. Leaf said the delegation informed Golani the United States would be dropping the $10 million bounty on his head, a result of his committing to fight terrorism in Syria. HTS is still seeking to be removed from the US list of foreign terrorist organizations and for individual sanctions against Golani and others to be lifted.
The United States and Syria lack diplomatic relations and Washington officially shuttered its embassy in 2014. Senior State Department official Daniel Rubinstein said Friday that visits to Syria are likely to become more regular as security conditions permit.
The US delegation also sought information about Tice, Majd Kamalmaz and other Americans imprisoned by the regime during the nearly 14-year civil war, the State Department said. President Joe Biden said he believes Tice, who was taken at a checkpoint in Damascus in 2012, is still alive but his whereabouts are unknown.
Asked whether the United States had received any new intelligence to suggest the journalist was still alive, Carstens told reporters that the latest information doesn’t confirm one way or the other.
On Friday, US officials worked with Syria’s interim authorities “to jointly search a location of interest.” They will fan out the search in the coming weeks and months to additional prison sites where Tice is believed to have been held.
“We're not going to stop until we find the information that we need to conclude what has happened to Austin, where he is, and to return him home to his family,” Carstens said.
Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, is among the volunteers scouring Syria’s prisons for any trace of the missing Americans. He told Al-Monitor he is aware of at least six US citizens who remain unaccounted for in Syria, including Tice and Kamalmaz.
Kamalmaz, a Virginia-based clinical psychologist, was abducted in the Syrian capital in 2017. US officials told his family earlier this year they had intelligence indicating he was dead.
This developing story has been updated since initial publication.
