Syria releases American citizen abducted 4 years ago
WASHINGTON -- The Syrian government has released an American freelance photographer who was captured after entering the country about four years ago, the State Department said Friday.
U.S. officials said Kevin Patrick Dawes, a 33-year-old freelance photographer from San Diego, was turned over to authorities from Russia, which has been backing the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the civil war that now is in its sixth year.
The U.S. officials said Dawes was abducted in 2012.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. continues to work through Czech officials in Syria to get information on the welfare and whereabouts of Austin Tice and other U.S. citizens missing and detained in Syria. The Czech embassy represents U.S. diplomatic interests in Syria.
Kirby declined to give further details on the release.
Tice, of Houston, Texas, disappeared in August 2012 while covering Syria's civil war. A video released a month later showed the journalist blindfolded and held by armed men, saying "Oh, Jesus." He had not been heard from since then.
In June, Tice's father, Marc, told CBS News that the new hostage policy announced by President Obama was "an excellent step forward."
"If there was ... any opportunity to bring Austin home, we would do everything we could to make it happen," he said.
The Washington Post first reported the release of Dawes and quoted FBI officials as saying that he was taken after crossing into Syria from Turkey. The Post said Dawes recently was permitted to call his family and receive packages.
In 2011, Dawes told NPR that he traveled to Libya initially as a medical aid worker but then ended up fighting with anti-Qaddafi forces.
He told NPR that he went to Libya to "see the world, experience new things, get in way over my head, but, you know, ultimately survive."