The mother of Austin Tice, a US journalist captured over 12 years ago in Syria, said on Friday that her family had information that he is still alive.

“We have from a significant source that has been vetted all over our government: Austin Tice is alive,” Debra Tice told journalists at the National Press Club on Friday, before going to the White House for a meeting.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Tice’s family in the afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

“Jake Sullivan did have a meeting with Austin Tice’s family this afternoon, and … Jake Sullivan has regularly met with the families of wrongfully detained Americans,” she said.

“We’re going to continue to make sure that we get Americans who are wrongfully detained or Americans home to their families.”

Tice’s mother and other relatives spoke at an event Friday following a White House meeting with national security officials that unfolded amid turmoil in Syria, as insurgent fighters who have already captured the northern city of Aleppo, the country’s largest , are pressing their march against President Bashar Assad‘s forces.

“The news we’re hearing from the Middle East is the kind of thing that can unsettle a mom,” Debra Tice said, later adding, “When I think about war, I never have a happy moment.”

Austin Tice’s sister, Naomi, said she asked officials whether there was a way to leverage the unrest to help secure Austin’s freedom. “We were basically just told that we need to wait and see how it pans out” — a response she called “beyond frustrating.”

Tice’s father, Marc, echoed that sentiment, noting that meetings this week with White House and State Department officials had devolved into finger-pointing and frustration.

“We have seen what real commitment looks like. We’ve seen it in Russia. We’ve seen it in China, seen in Venezuela, you see it in Gaza,” he said, referring to places where hostages have been released in recent months. “And we’ve yet to see it for us.”

He, too, declined to speak about the information pointing to his son being alive but said, “We are confident that this information is fresh. It indicated as late as earlier this year that Austin is alive and being cared for. And we do hope to make as much of this public as we can.”

Tice, a former US Marine and a freelance journalist from Houston and whose work had been published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other outlets, was abducted  at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus while reporting on the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 

A video released weeks later showed him blindfolded and held by armed men and saying, “Oh, Jesus.”

He has not been heard from since. He was 31 at the time. There has been no claim of responsibility for his abduction. 

In the final months of the Trump administration, two US officials — the government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, and Kash Patel , now Trump’s pick to lead the FBI — made a secret visit to Damascus to seek information on Tice and other Americans who have disappeared in Syria.

It was the highest-level talk in years between the US and Assad’s government, though Syrian officials offered no meaningful information on Tice.