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| American Is Said to Be Released by Syria | American Is Said to Be Released by Syria |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| The State Department said Friday that an American citizen held in Syria has been released by Syrian officials. The Washington Post and The Associated Press quoted two unidentified American officials as saying the freed American was Kevin Patrick Dawes, who has been missing in the war-ravaged country for nearly four years. | |
| “We can confirm and welcome the news that a U.S. citizen was released by Syrian authorities,” the State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said in a statement. “The United States continues to work through every possible means to ensure the safe release of U.S. citizens reported missing or taken hostage in Syria.” | “We can confirm and welcome the news that a U.S. citizen was released by Syrian authorities,” the State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said in a statement. “The United States continues to work through every possible means to ensure the safe release of U.S. citizens reported missing or taken hostage in Syria.” |
| State Department officials declined to confirm the identify of the released American, citing privacy concerns. But Mr. Kirby’s statement said American officials were working through the embassy of the Czech Republic, which represents United States interests in Syria, to get information on the whereabouts of another missing American, Austin Tice, a freelance journalist who has been missing for four years. | |
| Mr. Dawes, 33, from Renton, Wash., is described by an FBI missing-person’s notice as a freelance photographer. But journalists who met him while covering the conflicts in Libya and Syria knew him better as a war-zone adventurer. | |
| During the early months of the conflict in Libya, he introduced himself as a freelance journalist, and for a time worked with Libyan medics. But by the end of that conflict, he often was seen carrying a rifle near the rebel front lines, or directing traffic at rebel checkpoints. | |
| The Committee to Project Journalists, an advocacy group in New York, has not included Mr. Dawes in its list of roughly 25 journalists that are known to be missing in Syria, most of them presumed kidnapped or killed. At least six foreigners, including Mr. Tice, are among the missing. The other foreigners include three Spaniards, a Japanese, and a Briton, John Cantlie, a captive of the Islamic State militant group, who has been used in its propaganda videos. | |
| The Washington Post first reported the release of Mr. Dawes on Friday. The F.B.I. missing-person’s bulletin says that Mr. Dawes traveled to Syria in September of 2012 and that the last known contact with him was in October 2012. | |
| Telephone messages left with Mr. Dawes’s relatives in Renton were not immediately returned. |