The Biden administration said on Friday it has decided not to pursue a $10 million reward it had offered for the capture of a Syrian rebel leader whose forces led the ouster of President Bashar Assad earlier this month.
The announcement followed a meeting in Damascus between the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al Qaida, and the top US diplomat for West Asia, Barbara Leaf, who led the first US diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad’s ouster.
HTS remains designated a foreign terrorist organisation, and Leaf would not say if sanctions stemming from that designation would be eased. But, she told reporters that al-Sharaa had committed to renouncing terrorism and as a result the US would no longer offer the reward.
“We discussed the critical need to ensure terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region,” she said.
“Based on our discussion, I told him that we would not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice reward offered,” Leaf said in a telephone news conference from Jordan where she travelled after visiting Syria.
Leaf and other US officials have said al-Sharaa’s public statements about protecting minority and women’s rights are welcomed, but they remain sceptical that he will follow through on them in the long run.
“He came across as pragmatic,” she said. “It was a good first meeting. We will judge by deeds not just by words.” The US delegation’s visit was aimed at pushing for an inclusive government and seeking 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, joined the meetings with interim leaders and members of civil society.
Carstens said there was no new information confirming Tice’s fate or whereabouts but vowed that efforts to find him would continue. He travelled previously to Lebanon to seek information. More US officials are expected to visit Syria in the coming days to pick up the search, he said.
“We’re going to be like bulldogs on this,” Carstens said, adding that the US was focusing on about six prisons where it believed Tice may have been held in the past. He said the US also had information about three more prisons where Tice might have been incarcerated, and up to 40 sites may end up being examined for evidence.