Roger D. Carstens

This photo shows a car belonging to the US delegation parked outside a hotel in Damascus on Dec. 20, 2024

The first U.S. diplomats to visit Syria since President Bashar Assad's ouster earlier this month are in Damascus on Dec. 20 to hold talks with the country's new leaders and seek information on the whereabouts of missing American journalist Austin Tice.

American envoys have arrived in Syria to talk directly to the new Islamist leaders, the State Department says, in the most official U.S. diplomatic mission to the country since the start of the long-running civil war.