CIA set up secret back channel with Syria to try to free US hostage

WASHINGTON — In the early days of the Trump administration, national security officials began exploring ways to free Austin Tice, an American journalist and former Marine officer believed to be held by the Syrian government. His case has frustrated investigators and diplomats since he disappeared while on assignment nearly five years ago.

White House officials decided, because of the sensitivity of the situation, to set up a back channel. Given the deteriorated relations between the United States and Syria, options were limited. So in early February, Mike Pompeo, the CIA director, spoke with Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria's National Security Bureau intelligence service, a man accused of human rights abuses during the country's civil war and slapped with sanctions by the United States. The call was the highest-level contact between the governments in years.

Though Pompeo's discussion with Mamlouk prompted further communications that renewed hope that Tice would be freed, the operation fizzled after the Syrian government's nerve gas attack in rebel-held northern Syria in April and the U.S. missile strike in response, according to several former U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the efforts to free Tice remain secret.

The plight of Americans held hostage by reclusive foreign governments has gotten renewed attention since the death Monday of Otto F. Warmbier, a 22-year-old college student from Ohio who was arrested in North Korea in January 2016. Many of the most difficult cases involve nations — like Syria — that have no diplomatic relations with the United States, giving U.S. officials little leverage to negotiate. The Trump administration's outreach to Syria shows how far it has been willing to go to secure the release of Americans held abroad.

"Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't," said Daniel R. Russel, an assistant secretary of state under President Barack Obama.

While Warmbier was put on trial and his family knew he was being held by the North Korean government, Tice's case has been a conundrum. The United States believes the Syrian government is holding him, but it has no proof. Syria insists it does not know what happened to him.

"Austin Tice is not in the hands of Syrian authorities and we don't have any information about him at all," Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told The Associated Press last year.

The Tice family declined to comment, as did the CIA and the FBI.

Despite its antagonistic relationship with the United States, there is ample motive and precedent for the Syrian government to speak with high-level U.S. officials. Before the civil war, there were several such contacts, including one in 2010 between Mamlouk and Daniel Benjamin, who served as the coordinator for counterterrorism in the State Department in the Obama administration.

Even after the war broke out and the United States adopted a policy of pushing for Assad's ouster, Syrian officials were open to communicating with Americans, diplomats say.

"The Syrian government would like to reduce the extent of its isolation," said Robert S. Ford, a U.S. ambassador to Damascus during the Obama administration. "The Syrians are a very supple, nasty group. They're willing to talk all the time. That's just how they do business."

After the election, U.S. officials decided to brief Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, about the efforts to bring Tice home. Bannon was dismissive of Tice, raising questions about why he had traveled to Syria in the first place, former officials said.

Still, after Trump took office, the administration moved forward, resulting in Pompeo's phone call with Mamlouk in which he raised the issue of Tice. It is not clear what exactly the two men said, but the United States later suggested to Mamlouk that freeing Tice would go a long way as the administration shaped its broader Syria policy, according to the former officials.

It seemed like the best chance yet to bring Tice home. Administration officials began trying to figure out how the Syrians might explain his lengthy disappearance. After the Americans received proof of life, the Syrians would announce they had found Tice, crafting a narrative to explain his abduction. Tice would be put on trial for violating the country's immigration laws and then pardoned by Assad. After Tice landed on U.S. soil, Trump would call Assad.

But that never happened, and some former diplomats pointed to a comment in March by Nikki R. Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who said the United States did not view Assad's removal as a policy priority. "You pick and choose your battles," Haley told reporters, "and when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities. And our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out."

Her comments were unusual, former diplomats said. The administration had weakened its negotiating position by giving the Syrian government something it wanted — the president's tacit approval of Assad — without demanding anything in return.

"The administration said Assad could stay but got nothing for it," said James O'Brien, former special presidential envoy for hostage affairs under the Obama administration. "You only make that statement if you get Austin Tice home."

Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said it was always going to be hard to get Tice out of Syria but recent events had made it even harder. "What the regime requires is for us overlook what they do," Tabler said, referring to the gas attack. "That's a big deal. There is no way the U.S. is going to ignore these actions."

U.S. officials suspect that Mamlouk or Brig. Gen. Bassam al-Hassan, an adviser to Assad, knows Tice's whereabouts. Like Mamlouk, al-Hassan has been hit with sanctions by the United States.

Last year, the U.S. intelligence community concluded with moderate to high confidence in a secret analysis that Tice was alive, based partly on a report that he had been seen at a hospital in Damascus, being treated for dehydration.

The momentum to free Tice came to a halt in April when the Syrian government unleashed the gas attack on its own civilians, killing dozens of men, woman and children. In the days that followed, Trump ordered a strike on a Syrian air base used to carry out the gas attack.

Trump said in a recent interview that Assad was "truly an evil person." The situation only worsened in recent days as the United States shot down a Syrian fighter jet.

Tabler said the time was not right for a deal over Tice, who will turn 36 in August. "We're not there," he said. "That's sad for Austin Tice and his family. Everybody wishes that it had been different. That's just a hard reality."

Mark Landler contributed reporting.