The mother of American journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012, voiced hope on Sunday that upheaval in Syria will lead to freedom for her son.

Debra Tice said news that Missouri resident Travis Timmerman had been freed from a Syrian prison by rebels felt “like a rehearsal.” Her children woke her up when images of Timmerman began circulating on social media misidentifying him as Tice.

Asked if Timmerman’s misidentification was a moment of false hope, Debra Tice instead characterized it as a moment of joy to be shared. Timmerman has said he had traveled into Syria for a spiritual mission earlier this year and was arrested for entering the country illegally.

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“It was almost like having a rehearsal … an inkling of what it’s really going to feel like when it is Austin walking free,” she told NBC television’s “Meet the Press”.

Tice is the focus of a massive search following the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last week after 13 years of civil war. Rebels, led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have released thousands of people from prisons in Damascus where Assad held political opponents, ordinary civilians and foreigners.

A week after Assad’s ouster, some U.S. officials fear that Tice could have been killed during a recent round of Israeli airstrikes. Officials are also concerned that if Tice was being held underground in a cell, he may have run out of breathable air as Assad’s forces shut off the electricity in many of the prisons in Damascus before the president fled.   

Debra Tice said the news of Travis Timmerman’s recent prison release from Syria has given her newfound hope that her son Austin Tice will walk free. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call)

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Asked whether the U.S. government should be looking for Tice on the ground in Syria, Debra Tice was cautious, expressing gratitude for efforts by journalists and other civilians on the ground searching for him, including from the organization Hostage Aid Worldwide.

“The U.S. government has made the decision that they’re not going into Damascus. So, my feeling is, if they don’t want to be there, they shouldn’t be there. And the people that are there are the people that are determined,” she said.

Tice, who worked as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and McClatchy, was one of the first U.S. journalists to make it into Syria after the outbreak of the civil war.

Debra Tice holds a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on May 2, 2023. (Evelyn Hockstein)

In August 2012, during fighting in Aleppo, he was taken captive.

Weeks later, a YouTube video was published showing Tice blindfolded, hands tied behind his back. He was led up a hill by armed men in what appeared to be Afghan garb and shouting “God is great” in an apparent bid to blame Islamist rebels for his capture, although the video only gained attention when it was posted on a Facebook page associated with Assad supporters.

On Friday, Reuters was first to report that in 2013 Tice, a former Marine, managed to slip out of his cell and was seen moving between houses in the streets of Damascus’ upscale Mazzeh neighborhood.

Interim leader Muhammad Yunus says implementing full list of electoral reforms could delay elections by a few months.

General elections in Bangladesh will be held in late 2025 or early 2026, the country’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who heads the caretaker government installed after a popular revolution in August, announced.

“Election dates could be fixed by the end of 2025 or the first half of 2026,” the Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader said in a national broadcast on Monday delivered on the 53rd anniversary of Bangladesh winning independence.

Pressure has been growing on Yunus, appointed the country’s “chief adviser” after the student-led uprising that toppled ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, to set a date for elections.

Bangladesh’s army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman, whose refusal to support Hasina during the deadly student protests led to her departure, said in September that democracy should be restored within 12 to 18 months.

Opposition parties including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of two dominant parties in the country alongside the Awami League, have also called for elections to be held as soon as possible.

Yunus has launched commissions to oversee a group of reforms he says are needed, and setting an election date depends on what political parties agree to.

“Throughout, I have emphasised that reforms should take place first before the arrangements for an election,” he said.

“If the political parties agree to hold the election on an earlier date with minimum reforms, such as having a flawless voter list, the election could be held … by the end of 2025,” he added.

But including the full list of electoral reforms would delay polls by a few months, he said.

‘Extremely tough’ reforms

The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer is leading a temporary administration to tackle what he has called the “extremely tough” challenge of restoring democratic institutions in the South Asian nation of about 170 million people following Hasina’s removal.

Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to neighbouring India on August 5 as thousands of protesters stormed the prime minister’s palace in Dhaka.

Hundreds of people were killed in the weeks prior to Hasina’s removal, most by police gunfire.

Dozens more died in the hours after her toppling, largely in reprisal killings against prominent supporters of her Awami League party.

Her government was also accused of politicising courts and the civil service, as well as staging lopsided elections, to dismantle democratic checks on its power during 14 years in power.

Key among the reforms Yunus is pushing is an updated voter list, a “complex” challenge after years of turbulent democratic processes, requiring both the stripping of false names from lists and the registration of first-time voters in a rapidly growing youth population.

Yunus said he dreamed of “ensuring 100 percent voter turnout” in polls.

“If this can be achieved, no government will ever dare to strip citizens of their voting rights again,” he said.

Bangladesh last held general elections in January when Hasina celebrated victory, a poll denounced as neither free nor fair and boycotted by rivals after a crackdown during which thousands of opposition party members were arrested.

Yunus has said his administration is also focused on ensuring those guilty of abuses during the past government’s term face justice, including issuing a warrant for Hasina’s arrest.