Senior U.S. Diplomats Arrive in Syria to Meet With Governing Militias

The State Department said early Friday that three senior American diplomats had arrived in Damascus, the capital of Syria, to meet with leaders of the militias that have seized control of the country, and to look for signs of the journalist Austin Tice and other missing U.S.citizens.They are the first American diplomats to enter Damascus since the crumbling of the old government.

They are seeking to learn about and help shape the political landscape of Syria after the rapid fall this month of Bashar al-Assad, the longtime autocratic leader who ordered his forces to carry out mass atrocities during the civil war that grew out of an uprising in 2011.The United States broke off diplomatic ties with Syria the next year.The visit represents a tentative step toward engagement in Syria, a nation in which U.S.

involvement in recent years has usually involved the military, not diplomacy.The Biden administration has been in contact with militia leaders but has wrestled with how directly to engage, partly because the United States designated a precursor of the lead rebel group as terrorists.The diplomats “will be engaging directly with the Syrian people, including members of civil society, activists, members of different communities and other Syrian voices about their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help support them,” the State Department said in a statement.The officials are Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs; Roger D.

Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs; and Daniel Rubinstein, the new special adviser on Syria.The agency said the diplomats plan to discuss with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the most powerful militia, the “transition principles” that American, Arab and Turkish officials had agreed upon at a meeting last weekend in Aqaba, Jordan.American officials have emphasized that groups in Syria must build an inclusive process for governance and fairly treat ethnic and re...