Hostage envoy Roger Carstens traveled to Syria Friday, making the first known U.S. in-person contact with the caretaker government, and seeking help in finding missing American Austin Tice.

President Joe Biden says the U.S. government believes missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared 12 years ago near the Syrian capital, is alive.

We hold Bashar al-Assad and his criminal regime accountable for the consequences of Austin’s disappearance and the pain inflicted on his mother — pain, tears and separation," a spokesman told NBC News.

There are no credible hints of his whereabouts, but also no clear evidence that he is dead, a U.S. official said.

The mother of Austin Tice, who was taken captive in Syria in 2012, voiced hope that upheaval in the country will lead to freedom for her son.

The recent fall of the Assad regime has infused new hope in the search for Austin Tice, an American detained in Syria for a decade, as prisoners in jails across the country are released, Gustaf Kiland

In the 12 years since Austin Tice was abducted in Syria, his family and his coworkers at McClatchy have grieved at his absence, despaired at silence from the Syrian government and prayed that promises from three U.S. presidents would turn into actions that ...

The U.S. State Department on Monday said there is no U.S. government organization currently on the ground in Syria for the search of Austin Tice, an American journalist taken captive during a reporting trip in August 2012,

Hostage envoy Roger Carstens traveled to Syria Friday, making the first known U.S. in-person contact with the caretaker government, and seeking help in finding missing American Austin Tice.

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria has led to the freeing of tens of thousands of prisoners from the country’s brutal and byzantine prison system. Desperate family members continue to search for many more people who went missing since repression of an anti-government uprising triggered a horrific civil war in 2011.

The chairman and CEO of the McClatchy Media Company says the time is now to work toward the release of colleague Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria 12 years ago.