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White House official attended meetings in Damascus to secure release of hostages

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) –
A representative from the White House went to Damascus for secret meetings with the Syrian government earlier this year, in an effort to secure the release of at least two US citizens believed to be held hostage there, Reuters reported Monday.

According to a White House official who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the Trump administration representative who attended the meetings was Kash Patel, a deputy assistant to the President and the most senior White House counterterrorism official.

“It is emblematic of how President Trump has made it a major priority to bring Americans home who have been detained overseas,” the official said about Patel’s visit to Damascus.

In its own report about the visit, the Wall Street Journal said this was the first time a senior US official had gone to Syria to meet with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in over a decade. The US suspended diplomatic relations with Damascus in 2012 at the beginning of Syria’s civil war.

US officials hope Assad will agree to release freelance journalist and former Marine officer Austin Tice, who has not been seen since 2012 and who was last known to be reporting in Syria, the Wall Street Journal said. President Trump reportedly wrote to Assad privately in March, suggesting a “direct dialogue” about the journalist, Reuters reports.

It is also hoped that Syrian-American therapist Majd Kamalmaz, who was last seen being stopped at a Syrian government checkpoint in 2017, will also be released. At least four other Americans are believed to be hostages in Syria as well.