The recent regime change in Syria has intensified the Biden administration’s efforts to locate and return American journalist and Marine veteran Austin Tice.

This renewed push to secure Tice’s release, twelve years after his abduction, involves envoy Roger Carstens’s outreach in Beirut and attempts to gather information from Syrian sources, according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“The U.S. is actively working to find Austin Tice and bring him home,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stated Monday. “We urge anyone with information about Austin’s location to contact the FBI immediately.”

Miller also announced a $1 million reward for credible information leading to Tice’s safe return.

The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program offers an additional $10 million reward for information about Tice’s whereabouts.

“As Secretary Blinken has directly assured Austin’s family – including recently – we won’t stop until he’s safely home,” the spokesman confirmed.

Sullivan also told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the U.S. is collaborating with Turkish partners to contact individuals in Syria who might have information about Tice’s possible prison location.

“This is our top priority,” Sullivan emphasized.

Tice was 31 when detained in Damascus in August 2012 while reporting on the uprising against the Assad regime, at the start of the Syrian civil war, and following Sunday’s rebel takeover of the capital.

The Tice family believes he is still alive, and reports suggest the U.S. has received intermittent, though difficult-to-verify, information about his location.

A former U.S. official, speaking to Reuters, cited information from a Lebanese source this summer who claimed to have seen Tice alive and indicated his possible captivity by a Hezbollah-linked group.

In 2020, President Biden declared his certainty of the Assad regime’s responsibility for Tice’s imprisonment and demanded his release.

The regime denied involvement in Tice’s abduction or detention.

The U.S. has reportedly engaged in back-channel talks with Syria, facilitated by Lebanese intermediaries for years, including under the Biden administration, without success.

Syrian officials allegedly refused to discuss Tice’s release, offering only proof-of-life information contingent upon U.S. concessions, such as troop withdrawal.

The Biden administration’s last reported communication with Syria regarding Tice occurred a month before Aleppo’s fall to rebel forces in late November.

Following Hezbollah’s decline, Russia and Iran’s weakened support for the Assad regime, and the subsequent rebel takeover, tens of thousands of Syrian prisoners have been released.

The notorious Saydnaya military prison, known as a “human slaughterhouse,” was liberated Sunday, with rebels freeing men, women, and children, according to the Associated Press.

Prisoners in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Damascus have been released, offering hope to families separated for years.

In a Saturday address, Biden expressed cautious optimism, stating, “We believe he’s alive. We think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence to that yet.”

“We have to identify where he is,” the president added.