US drops $10 million bounty on Syrian rebel leader who toppled Assad

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) The Biden administration announced Friday that it had decided not to pursue the $10 million reward it had offered for the capture of a Syrian rebel leader whose forces led to the ousting of President Bashar Assad earlier this month.

The announcement followed a meeting in Damascus between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once allied with al-Qaeda, and the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf , who led the group. first American diplomatic delegation to Syria since the ouster of Assad.

HTS remains designated as a foreign terrorist organization, and Leaf would not comment on whether sanctions stemming from that designation would be eased. But she told reporters that al-Sharaa had pledged to renounce terrorism and therefore the United States would no longer offer the reward.

We discussed the critical need to ensure that terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside or outside Syria, including to the United States and our partners in the region, he said. she declared.

Based on our discussion, I told him that we would not continue to benefit from the rewards for justice offered, Leaf said in a telephone news conference from Jordan, where she went after visiting the Syria.

Leaf and other U.S. officials have said al-Sharaa's public statements about protecting the rights of minorities and women are welcome, but they remain skeptical about its ability to follow through on those statements in the long term.

He seemed pragmatic, she said. It was a good first meeting. We will judge by actions, not just words.

The United States. The delegation's visit aimed to push for an inclusive government and seek information on the whereabouts of missing American journalist Austin Tice.

Along with Leaf, former special envoy for Syria Daniel Rubinstein and the Biden administration's chief envoy for hostage negotiations, Roger Carstens, participated in the meetings with interim leaders and members of the company civil.

Carstens said there was no new information confirming Tices' fate or whereabouts, but promised efforts to find him would continue. He has already traveled to Lebanon to seek information. Other U.S. officials are expected to travel to Syria in the coming days to continue the search, he said.

We're going to be like bulldogs about this, Carstens said, adding that the United States is focusing on about six prisons where it believes Tice may have been held in the past. He said the United States also has information on three other prisons where Tice may have been incarcerated, and that up to 40 sites could end up being examined for evidence of Tice's presence.

Tice, whose work has been published by the Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus as the Syrian civil war intensified.

A video released weeks after Tice's disappearance showed him blindfolded and detained by armed men and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” Since then, we haven't heard from him. Assad's government has publicly denied holding him.

The Leafs team was the first group of American diplomats to officially visit Syria in more than a decade, since the United States closed its embassy in Damascus in 2012, although a small number of American diplomats have been assigned to political advisory roles with military units in Syria since. SO.

Shortly before the delegation's arrival in Damascus, the US military announced that it had carried out airstrikes in northeastern Syria on Thursday, killing an Islamic State group leader and another militant. The strike is part of an ongoing effort to prevent ISIS insurgents from taking advantage of the unrest in Syria, including any plans to free more than 8,000 ISIS prisoners held by partner Kurds of the United States, Central Command said in a statement. .

The Pentagon revealed Thursday that the United States had doubled the number of its forces in Syria to fight ISIS before Assad's fall. There are currently around 2,000.

The diplomats' visit to Damascus will not lead to the immediate reopening of the US embassy, ​​which is under the protection of the Czech government, according to US officials, who said decisions on diplomatic recognition will be made when the new Syrian authorities will have made their intentions clear. .

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Lee reported from Washington.

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