Is Austin Tice Dead or Alive? We May Never Know

It's been 13 years since the last visual proof that Austin Tice was alive. The US journalist believed to have been taken prisoner in Syria by Bashar al-Assad's regime in August 2012, appeared in a video released the following month. But all these years later, Tice's parents hope he's still out there, trying to get home. A former Syrian captive claimed to have seen the US journalist in a Damascus prison in 2022, though when the prison doors were opened after the fall of the Assad regime in December, Tice didn't emerge. A former Syrian general who served under Assad told US investigators that Tice was actually killed in captivity in 2013, but US officials have been unable to confirm that.

Now, the case get a fresh look by the Washington Post, which spoke with more than 70 people on four continents to get a picture of the man and the efforts to rescue him. The story tracks the former Marine's quick transition to journalism; his determination to get to Damascus; his life-saving assistance to rebels with the Free Syrian Army, some of whom believed he was a spy; and what some colleagues saw as Tice's reckless behavior on the ground.

By August, he was preparing to leave Syria but was reportedly betrayed by a taxi driver and handed over to the Assad regime, which "remained opaque and implacable until the end," per the Post, even as the US considered offering medical equipment to Assad's cancer-stricken wife in exchange for information in 2020. President Trump's comment about having wanted to assassinate Assad around that time probably didn't help. Some involved in the search "say it is possible there will never be definitive proof of his fate," per the Post. But though the lack of answers remains frustrating, he knew what he'd walked into. "There are actually things out there worth dying for," Tice wrote weeks before his disappearance. "Coming here to Syria is the greatest thing I've ever done." Read the full investigation.