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(This Jan. 13 story has been corrected to show Zakka has U.S. citizenship, in paragraph 3)
By Firas Makdesi
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - The head of an American organisation focused on hostage releases said on Monday he believes U.S. journalist Austin Tice was still being held in Syria by people loyal to toppled leader Bashar al-Assad.
Speaking to Reuters in Damascus, Nizar Zakka said he believed Tice was being held by "very few people in a safe house in order to do an exchange or a deal".
Zakka, a Lebanese businessman who was held in Iran for four years until 2019 on charges of spying, later became a U.S. citizen. He is the president of Hostage Aid Worldwide.
He has traveled to Syria multiple times following Assad's ouster by rebels on Dec. 8 in a bid to track down Tice, a former U.S. Marine and a freelance journalist who was abducted in 2012 while reporting in Damascus on the uprising against Assad.
Zakka said his group's own investigation had revealed Tice was still in Syria, and that "a lot of progress" had been made in his hunt in recent weeks. But he added that Syria's new rulers, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), had not provided much assistance.
"We were hoping that HTS would help us more, but unfortunately HTS did not help us because they had their own concerns," he said.
Zakka said he had no information on Tice's precise location but suspected that a deal, possibly involving pressure from Assad's ally Russia, could see the American journalist released.
Tice was detained at a checkpoint in Daraya, near Damascus, in August 2012. Reuters was first to report that Tice managed to slip out of his cell in 2013 and was seen moving between houses in the streets of Damascus' upscale Mazzeh neighborhood.
He was recaptured soon after his escape, likely by forces who answered directly to Assad, current and former U.S. officials said.
Tice's mother Debra has voiced hope that upheaval in Syria will lead to freedom for her son and has expressed gratitude for efforts by journalists and other civilians searching for him, including from Hostage Aid Worldwide.
Zakka said he was in regular touch with Debra.
"She gave us all the power and the support for us to make it happen, to find Austin and to work for Austin," he said.
(Reporting by Firas Makdesi; Writing by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Jon Boyle)
