DAMASCUS, Syria — Two American journalists whose disappearance prompted a U.S. Embassy alert and a wide search turned up in Syrian custody Thursday after being detained while trying to sneak into the country with smugglers, Syrian officials said.
Holli Chmela, 27, and Taylor Luck, 23, were released later in the day in good condition, said the U.S. State Department.
“They are at our embassy in Damascus. They are in good shape, and they are getting in touch with their families,” said deputy State Department spokesman Robert Wood.
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut launched a search Wednesday with Lebanese authorities after the two failed to return to Amman, Jordan, last weekend from a vacation in Lebanon. They worked for an English- language newspaper, the Jordan Times.
The two had last been heard from Oct. 1, when they checked out of a Beirut hotel, reportedly headed to the northern port city of Tripoli, site of sectarian clashes and attacks by Islamic militants in recent months.
It was not known why they tried to sneak across the border into Syria. They were on vacation but may have wanted to report on the widespread smuggling between Lebanon and Syria, particularly on back roads in remote parts of the north.
They appeared to have walked into a Syrian troop buildup deployed on the border to crack down on smuggling and Islamic militants that Damascus says infiltrate Syria from the area.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Chmela and Luck were detained Thursday for illegally crossing from northern Lebanon with smugglers.
