State Dept says no US government organization on the ground for the search of Austin Tice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department on Monday said there is no U.S. government organization on the ground currently for the search of Austin Tice, an American journalist who was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012, although it did not rule out the possibility.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a regular news briefing that the U.S. was continuing to try and locate Tice, but did not have specific information about his whereabouts.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Costas Pitas and Daphne Psaledakis, Editing by Franklin Paul)