An independent rescue group is working tirelessly to try and extract Austin Tice and other Americans still in Syria in the aftermath of the downfall of the Assad regime.
Grey Bull Rescue founder Bryan Stern says the situation for Tice is likely dire.
Speaking with DailyMail.com, Stern says there was circumstantial and second-hand information that indicates to him that Tice was alive just before rebel forces overthrew Bashar al-Assad just over one week ago.
But with prisons and other buildings in Syria left abandoned in the fall, the group now fears that Tice has been left without food or water for the last eight days.
Stern and his team, which rescues Americans from war zones and unstable foreign countries, are dedicating their resources now to finding Tice and getting him back to the U.S.
‘One of the nuances here is that if you operate under the assumption that Austin is alive, or at least right until the Assad regime fell – if you take all that as true, then the facilities that he was in have since been abandoned,’ Stern explained.
‘He is probably, if he’s being held and if he’s alive, is hidden in a secret room, within a secret place, within a secret building, within a secret tunnel – one of those deals,’ he continued. ‘Very, very, very few people actually know that, which means, from a tactical perspective, probably Austin has been in a room with no food, no water for about eight days.’
Tice, a Marine Corps veteran, was kidnapped in Darayya, Syria in 2012 when he was working in the country as a freelance journalist for multiple outlets – including McClatchy, The Washington Post and CBS News.
For Tice, and other captive Americans, the situation is growing increasingly urgent with the risk of others discovering him first – or his location going unfound until it’s too late.
Stern’s group is known for extracting Americans from war zones including in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon. They also ran operations in Haiti and Ukraine.
Tice’s case has been on Grey Bull Rescue’s radar for over three years and with the situation in Syria rapidly evolving, Stern’s deep connections in the Middle East put him in the unique position to navigate this complex operation.
Biden said Sunday that Tice is alive and that the U.S. is working to find his location and extradite him from Syria during the time of transition to a new government.
‘We believe he’s alive,’ Biden said on Sunday when making remarks just after the Assad regime failed. ‘We think we can get him back but we have no direct evidence of that yet.’
‘And Assad has to be held accountable,’ he insisted.
Stern says his group is in contact with several U.S. federal government agencies as it works in Syria. Specifically, he is speaking with those in the Department of Justice and State Department.
‘We’re all on the same team there,’ Stern insisted. ‘They wake up every day trying to protect Americans, and so do we.’
He divulged: ‘Sometimes that relationship is a little complicated, and sometimes doesn’t go so smooth – but at the end of the day, Grey Bull has a very good relationship with the U.S. government.’
‘And a big part of that is because they know that we’re doing the right thing, and we’re not in the way, and we do good work, and we’re also not political. A we’re fast, right? We’re fast. We don’t need to talk to 20 layers of stupid to get to a yes or a no. We can just make decisions.’
There are other relationships that Stern says he might not be so proud of.
‘We have networks all over the place,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘We have people who we proudly talk to, and then we have people that we don’t exactly – are not always so proud of those relationships.’
‘When you do war zone operations, you’re gonna be around bad guys, – just how it is.’