The Biden administration stated Friday it has determined to not pursue a $10 million reward it had supplied 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 Center 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 can be eased. However, she advised reporters that al-Sharaa had dedicated to renouncing terrorism and in consequence the U.S. would not provide the reward.
“We mentioned the important want to make sure terrorist teams can’t pose a risk inside Syria or externally, together with to the U.S. and our companions within the area,” she stated.
“Based mostly on our dialogue, I advised him that we might not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice reward supplied,” 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 ladies’s rights are welcomed, however they continue to be skeptical that he’ll observe by way of on them in the long term.
“He got here throughout as pragmatic,” she stated. “It was first assembly. We’ll choose 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.
Together 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 seek out him would proceed. He traveled beforehand to Lebanon to hunt data. Extra 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 might 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 might find yourself being examined for proof of Tice’s presence.
Tice, who has had his work printed by The Washington Put up, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested space west of Damascus because the Syrian civil conflict 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, because the 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 navy items inside Syria since then.
Shortly earlier than the delegation arrived in Damascus, the U.S. navy stated it had carried out airstrikes in northeastern Syria on Thursday, killing a frontrunner of the Islamic State group and one different militant. The strike was a part of an ongoing effort to stop 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 a press release.
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 won’t 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 selections on diplomatic recognition will likely be made when the brand new Syrian authorities make their intentions clear.
