Trump admin set up back channel in effort to rescue Syrian hostage: report

The CIA set up a backchannel at the beginning of the Trump administration to free an American hostage suspected of being held by the Syrian regime, according to The New York Times on Friday.

Former Marine Austin Tice left for Syria in 2012 and traveled the region freelancing for various news organizations before disappearing.

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CIA Director Mike Pompeo spoke with the head of Syria’s National Security Bureau intelligence service, Ali Mamlouk, in February, according to the report. That meeting marked the highest-level contact made between the U.S. and Syria in years.

However, the operation ended after the Syrian government used nerve gas to attack rebel controlled territories in April, and the U.S. responded with a missile strike.

Tice is not the first American hostage the Trump administration has tried to release.

The report comes after the Trump administration negotiated the release of American college student Otto Warmbier from North Korea. Warmbier succumbed last week to brain damage he is thought to have gotten while he was in North Korean custody.

The administration also negotiated the release of Egyptian American charity worker Aya Hijazi in April.