A new twist in the case of missing American journalist Austin Tice, but no clear answers

Over the weekend, there was major news about missing American freelance journalist Austin Tice, who hasn’t been seen in more than a decade while trying to leave Syria. But his whereabouts remain unknown and there are doubts about the stunning news that was reported.

A former senior Syrian official under former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has told U.S. officials that Tice was killed in 2013 on the orders of Assad. However, the story has not been corroborated by the United States.

The New York Times’ Adam Goldman, Haley Willis, Erika Solomon and Christiaan Triebert reported, “In meetings with the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., the former commander, Bassam Hassan, a top adviser to Mr. al-Assad who was accused of facilitating the country’s chemical weapons attacks on civilians, disclosed in recent weeks that Mr. al-Assad, the authoritarian leader who was toppled in December, had ordered the killing of Mr. Tice.”

Tice has been missing since August 2012, when he vanished near the Syrian capital of Damascus. He had just turned 31 at the time. Prior to this latest news, the Assad regime had denied knowing of Tice’s whereabouts.

Reports are that Hassan was interviewed by the FBI and CIA over several days in April.

The BBC’s Joshua Baker and Sara Obeidat, who broke this story over the weekend, reported that Hassan was a part of Assad's inner circle. They added, “The discovery was made as part of an upcoming BBC Radio 4 podcast about the disappearance of Austin Tice.”

Baker and Obeidat wrote, “Sources familiar with the conversations told the BBC that Al Hassan claims to have initially tried to dissuade President Assad from killing Mr. Tice, but that he eventually passed on this order and that it was carried out. Al Hassan is also understood to have provided possible locations for the journalist's body. Sources familiar with the FBI investigation have said that efforts to confirm the validity of Al Hassan's claims are ongoing, and that a search is intended to happen on the sites where Mr Tice's body could be.”

A representative for the Tice family gave a statement to The New York Times, saying they doubted the veracity of the story and were disappointed in its publication. The representative added, “Based on firsthand information, the Tice family believes this version of events is false and it is unhelpful to their efforts to locate and safely return Austin.”

As recently as 2024, then-President Joe Biden told reporters that the U.S. believed Tice was alive and “we think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet.”

As far as Hassan, the Times reported, “American intelligence agencies have long believed that Mr. Hassan played a critical role in Mr. Tice’s imprisonment. His name was one of several the Biden administration gave the rebel group that toppled the Syrian government in the hopes it could obtain information about Mr. Tice. Mr. Hassan, American officials believe, could provide clues about not only Mr. Tice but also other matters of importance to the United States and its allies.”

However, the Times did add,“A former senior American official familiar with the Tice case said there should be skepticism about what Mr. Hassan told investigators because of a possible desire to cast blame on Mr. al-Assad.”

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Cyberattack on Washington Post journalists

Several reporters at The Washington Post were the victims of a cyberattack, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal's Dustin Volz, Isabella Simonetti and Robert McMillan reported the attack “compromised email accounts of several journalists and was potentially the work of a foreign government, company officials told some affected staffers in recent days, according to people familiar with the situation.”

They added, “Staffers were told the intrusions compromised journalists’ Microsoft accounts and could have granted the intruder access to work emails they sent and received, some of the people said. The reporters targeted include those on the national-security and economic-policy teams, including some who write about China, the people said.”

The Journal reported that Post executive editor Matt Murray sent a note to staff on Sunday to alert them about a “possible targeted unauthorized intrusion into our email system.” The note added that the Post believed a limited number of journalists’ accounts were affected, and that the Post is investigating. The Post discovered the issue last Thursday. The staffers directly impacted were notified in recent days and were told not to say anything.

The Journal wrote, “Murray, in his staff note sent Sunday afternoon, said the news outlet has taken additional steps to secure its digital systems, including a forced credential reset for all Post employees. ‘We do not believe this unauthorized intrusion impacted any additional Post systems or has had any impact for our customers,’ Murray said.”

One day in America

What a compelling day Saturday was in this country.

In Washington, there was a parade for the Army’s 250th anniversary. It was officially called “The 250th Birthday of the U.S. Army Grand Military Parade and Celebration.” Unofficially? It was seen as Donald Trump’s parade. It was his 79th birthday, and it was the kind of parade that Trump had admired when other countries held them. It was his chance to show off America’s military strength.

Meanwhile, more than an estimated 5 million people across the country participated in 2,000 protests against Trump called “No Kings.”

The Washington parade included three dozen horses, 28 Abrams tanks, 6,700 soldiers and cost, reportedly, $40 million. Coverage of the event, particularly on TV, was muted because of other, more important events going on in the world. There were politically motivated shootings in Minnesota that included the death of Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. In addition, there were more bombings in the Middle East.

And, the parade itself seemed muted.

The New Republic’s Malcolm Ferguson wrote, “It was generally very quiet—so quiet you could clearly hear the creaks and squeaks of the armored vehicles—with intermittent music that was constantly being lowered so that the parade narrator could announce each battalion. Weak chants of ‘USA, USA’ popped up every 10 minutes or so. And the majority of the parade was just soldiers walking by—not even marching in step with each other—in military garb from wars past. Children grew weary in the humidity, as did some adults. One man wearing an Inforwars.com shirt kept yelling “bring out the tanks!!” and complained that ‘people got no energy out here.’ Another started scrolling on TikTok.”

The New York Times’ Zach Montague wrote, “Reporters for The New York Times who attended the parade described an at-times underwhelming performance and crowds dispersing early amid a light drizzle.”

However, Washington Post columnist Max Boot wrote that he enjoyed the parade, writing, “As a military history nerd, I loved to see the soldiers marching by in period uniforms from the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. I thrilled to the flybys from historic aircraft — including a C-47 transport, P-51 fighter aircraft and a Huey helicopter — and the daring skydiving of the Army’s Golden Knights Parachute Team. I thought it was cool to see some soldiers going by on horseback, while others drove historic vehicles such as Jeeps and M4 Sherman tanks. Near the end, the Army even showcased its weapons of the future with a drone flyby and a walk-by from drones resembling dogs.”

Boot added, “This was not a menacing, goose-stepping parade a la Moscow or Pyongyang. It was America’s army on display, and I appreciated how many of the GIs were women or ethnic minorities — a reminder of the limits of (Defense Secretary Pete) Hegseth’s anti-DEI purges in a force that truly represents the entire country. I think it was a good thing for Americans to be reminded of the glorious history of their army — a force for freedom that has defeated some of the most monstrous evils of the past two centuries, including the Confederacy, Imperial and Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet empire. Granted, the Army has also engaged in reprehensible conduct over the centuries, from the American Indian Wars to Abu Ghraib, but it makes sense on a day like this to celebrate, rather than criticize, the soldiers who put their lives on the line to defend us.”

Clearly, however, the enthusiasm was much higher at the “No Kings” protests across the country.

Here are a few pieces of note about Saturday:

• NPR’s Alana Wise, Kat Lonsdorf and Clare Marie Schneider with “3 takeaways from the military parade and No Kings protests on Trump's birthday.”
• The Associated Press with “Photos of anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ demonstrations across the US.”
• The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell and Brett Samuels with “5 takeaways from Trump’s Army parade.”

Media tidbits

• Mediaite’s Kipp Jones with “Fox’s Bret Baier Confronts Netanyahu on Claim Iran Was Close to Building a Nuke: ‘Was U.S. Intel Wrong?’”
• PolitiFact’s Madison Czopek with “How conservative X accounts promoted wild theory implicating Gov. Tim Walz in lawmaker’s killing.”
• The White House Correspondents' Association held its elections last week. Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich was named to the WHCA board for the next three years, as well as president for the 2027-2028 term. Also named to the board were CBS’s Sara Cook and Time’s Brian Bennett.
• The Los Angeles Times’ Jack Harris with “Nezza says she sang national anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium against team’s wishes.”
• The New York Times’ Penelope Green with “Norma Swenson, an Author of ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves,’ Dies at 93.”

Hot type

• The New York Times’ Jodi Kantor with “How Amy Coney Barrett Is Confounding the Right and the Left.”
• “CBS News Sunday Morning” and correspondent David Pogue talk with the family of the late singer-songwriter Harry Chapin in “Harry Chapin: Songwriter, activist and father.”

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