DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — An American citizen who disappeared seven months ago into former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s notorious prison system was suddenly discovered Thursday outside Damascus after being released and handed over to rebel forces, Syria’s new authorities said.
The political affairs office of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led the lightning offensive to topple Assad’s government, said the group had secured the release of U.S. citizen Travis Timmerman. In interviews with media in Syria, Timmerman said he was imprisoned after crossing from Lebanon into Syria on a Christian pilgrimage.
He appeared to be among the thousands of people released from Syria's sprawling military prisons this week after rebels reached Damascus, overthrowing Assad and ending his family’s 54-year rule.
“We affirm our readiness to cooperate directly with the U.S. administration to complete the search for American citizens disappeared by the former Assad regime,” the group said, adding that a search was underway for Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria 12 years ago.
As footage emerged online Thursday of Timmerman, looking disheveled and disoriented as rebels led him out of a family's home near Damascus, some initially mistook him for Tice.
In the video, Timmerman could be seen lying on a mattress under a blanket. A group of men in the video said that he was being treated well and would be safely returned home.
A Syrian family told The Associated Press they found Timmerman barefoot on a main road in the countryside of Damascus early on Thursday. He appeared cold and hungry so they brought him back to their home.
“I fed him and called a doctor,” said Mosaed al-Rifai, the 68-year-old waste collector who first found Timmerman.
Al-Rifai said it was hard to communicate because of the language barrier but it seemed Timmerman had been held by an internal security agency. A few hours after al-Rifai discovered him, rebels arrived at the family’s house to pick him up, he said.
Mouaz Mostafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based nonprofit group, said he met Timmerman at the house and arranged for a car to take him to Damascus, where the new authorities gave the ex-detainee food and water and brought him clothes and shoes. Timmerman had lice in his long, unkempt hair, Mostafa said, and reported walking for 13 miles barefoot before being discovered.
Timmerman — now recovering until the rebels can figure out how to hand him to U.S. authorities — was planning to get to Jordan after his release to obtain a new passport, Mostafa said.
Earlier this year, a Missouri State Highway Patrol bulletin identified him as “Pete Travis Timmerman,” 29, and said he had gone missing in Hungary in early June. In late August, Hungarian police put out a missing persons announcement for “Travis Pete Timmerman,” saying he was last seen at a church in Hungary’s capital, Budapest.
Authorities in Missouri and Hungary had shared photos of a young man who strongly resembles the ex-prisoner who identified himself as “Travis Timmerman" in interviews with international news outlets on Thursday.
Missouri court records indicate Timmerman is from Urbana, Missouri, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Springfield in the southwestern part of the state. A graduation list from Missouri State University shows he earned his bachelor’s degree in finance in the spring of 2017.
Timmerman’s mother, Stacey Collins Gardiner, told National Public Radio that he returned home to Urbana after working in Chicago for a couple of years. He then left for Budapest with the goal of writing about his Christian faith and helping people, she said.
Timmerman had warned her, she added, that his travels might make communication difficult. After losing contact with him during his stay in Hungary, Gardiner later learned that her son had gone to Lebanon.
On Thursday, she heard that he was found through the media.
“I will hug him. ... And then I probably won’t let him go,” she said, laughing. “I’ll say, well, thank God you’re still alive. And I’m so happy. Our prayers came true."
U.S. officials said they were working to confirm Timmerman's identity and provide the support. From Aqaba, Jordan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that the White House was “working to bring him home, to bring him out of Syria” but declined further comment for privacy reasons.
Timmerman, with a scraggly beard and grey sweatshirt, later spoke with the Al-Arabiya TV network, saying he had illegally crossed into Syria on foot from the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle seven months ago before being detained and held in a cell alone.
He said that he was treated well in detention, but could hear other young men being tortured.
“It was OK. I was fed. I was watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to,” he said. He said he was only allowed to go three times a day.
“I was not beaten and the guards treated me decently,” he added.
Washington's top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, traveled to Lebanon earlier this week in hopes of collecting information on the whereabouts of Tice.
President Joe Biden has said his administration believed Tice was alive and was committed to bringing him home, though he also acknowledged on Sunday that “we have no direct evidence” of his status. The case has frustrated U.S. intelligence officials for years.
On Thursday, Blinken emphasized the administration’s work on Tice's case.
“Every single day we are working to find him and to bring him home” Blinken said. "This is a priority for the United States.”
Tice, who has had his work published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus in August 2012 as the Syrian civil war intensified.
A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held by armed men. He hasn't been heard from since. Assad's government had denied that it was holding him.
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