A former Syrian general who served as an adviser to former President Bashar al-Assad has claimed that Assad personally ordered the execution of American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared near the Syrian capital, Damascus, in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview with CNN, the defector, General Bassam al-Hassan, stated that Tice \u201cwas killed under a direct order from Assad in 2013,\u201d following a failed attempt to escape from captivity. He said he had tried to persuade Assad not to carry out the execution, but \u201cthe former president insisted on the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Hassan, who fled Syria to Iran and then to Lebanon in December 2024, added that he had been questioned by U.S. intelligence agencies over the past few months. He noted that \u201cRussia and Iran were not involved in the case,\u201d asserting that \u201cthe decision came solely from Assad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also revealed that he had delivered the execution order to one of his subordinates in the National Defense Forces\u2014a pro-regime militia supported by Iran\u2014without disclosing the location of the burial, saying only that it was \u201cin the vicinity of Damascus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Austin Tice, a former U.S. Marine Corps captain and freelance journalist who worked with The Washington Post, disappeared in August 2012 while covering events in Syria. He was 31 years old at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A former Syrian general who served as an adviser to former President Bashar al-Assad has claimed that Assad personally ordered the execution of American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared near the Syrian capital, Damascus, in 2012. In an interview with CNN, the defector, General Bassam al-Hassan, stated that Tice \u201cwas killed under a direct order …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-3088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-s1"],"yoast_head":"\n