The Biden administration stated Friday it has determined to not pursue a $10 million reward it had provided for the seize of a Syrian insurgent chief whose forces led the ouster of President Bashar Assad earlier this month.
The announcement adopted a gathering in Damascus between the chief of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was as soon as aligned with al-Qaida, and the highest U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who led the primary U.S. diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad’s ouster.
HTS stays designated a overseas terrorist group, and Leaf wouldn’t say if sanctions stemming from that designation could be eased. But, she advised reporters that al-Sharaa had dedicated to renouncing terrorism and consequently the U.S. would not provide the reward.
“We mentioned the crucial want to make sure terrorist teams can not pose a risk inside Syria or externally, together with to the U.S. and our companions within the area,” she stated.
“Based on our dialogue, I advised him that we’d not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice reward provided,” Leaf stated in a phone information convention from Jordan the place she traveled after visiting Syria.
Leaf and different U.S. officers have stated al-Sharaa’s public statements about defending minority and girls’s rights are welcomed, however they continue to be skeptical that he’ll comply with by way of on them in the long term.
“He got here throughout as pragmatic,” she stated. “It was first assembly. We will decide by deeds not simply by phrases.”
The US. delegation’s go to was geared toward pushing for an inclusive authorities and looking for data on the whereabouts of lacking American journalist Austin Tice.
Along with Leaf, former particular envoy for Syria Daniel Rubinstein and the Biden administration’s chief envoy for hostage negotiations, Roger Carstens, joined the conferences with interim leaders and members of civil society.
Carstens stated there was no new data confirming Tice’s destiny or whereabouts however vowed that efforts to search out him would proceed. He traveled beforehand to Lebanon to hunt data. More U.S. officers are anticipated to go to Syria within the coming days to select up the search, he stated.
“We’re going to be like bulldogs on this,” Carstens stated, including that the U.S. was specializing in about six prisons the place it believed Tice could have been held previously. He stated the U.S. additionally had details about three extra prisons the place Tice may need been incarcerated, and as much as 40 websites could find yourself being examined for proof of Tice’s presence.
Tice, who has had his work printed by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested space west of Damascus because the Syrian civil battle intensified.
A video launched weeks after Tice went lacking confirmed him blindfolded and held by armed males and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since. Assad’s authorities publicly denied that it was holding him.
Leaf’s crew was the primary group of American diplomats to formally go to Syria in additional than a decade, for the reason that U.S. shuttered its embassy in Damascus in 2012, though a small variety of U.S. diplomats had been assigned to political advisory roles with army models inside Syria since then.
Shortly earlier than the delegation arrived in Damascus, the U.S. army stated it had carried out airstrikes in northeastern Syria on Thursday, killing a pacesetter of the Islamic State group and one different militant. The strike was a part of an ongoing effort to forestall IS insurgents from benefiting from the upheaval in Syria, together with any plan to launch the greater than 8,000 IS prisoners held in detention by Kurds who’ve partnered with the U.S., Central Command stated in an announcement.
The Pentagon revealed Thursday that the U.S. had doubled the variety of its forces in Syria to combat IS earlier than Assad’s fall. There are roughly 2,000 there now.
The diplomats’ go to to Damascus is not going to consequence within the instant reopening of the U.S. embassy, which is below the safety of the Czech authorities, in accordance with U.S. officers, who stated choices on diplomatic recognition will probably be made when the brand new Syrian authorities make their intentions clear.