The White House said that it had no prior indication that the U.S. citizen was in Syria.
An American citizen who went missing in June has reportedly been transported out of Syria by the U.S. military after being released from Syria’s prison this week, which came in the aftermath of the collapse of the Assad regime.
Travis Timmerman, 29, was handed over to U.S. forces at Tanf garrison, near the borders of Iraq and Jordan. He had reportedly been flown to Jordan on a U.S. military helicopter, according to U.S. officials who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
Timmerman was freed after Syrian insurgent groups seized control of the capital Damascus on Dec. 8 and ousted President Bashar al-Assad, forcing Assad to flee the country.
Timmerman told reporters that he was detained after crossing into Syria from Lebanon while on a Christian pilgrimage earlier this year. The Hungarian police issued a missing person
report for him on Aug. 26, stating he was last seen at a church in Budapest.
The Epoch Times asked the State Department for confirmation of the details in the report.
White House National Security spokesman John Kirby stated on Dec. 12 that the U.S. government had no prior indication that Timmerman was in Syria.
“I want to remind that we are just getting word of this, and we’re trying to confirm his identity at this point, so the State Department is working hard on that right now,” he
told reporters.
Speaking to reporters in Jordan on Dec. 13, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. government is working to bring home an American citizen found in Syria, without naming Timmerman.
“In terms of an American citizen who was found just today, I can’t give you any details on exactly what’s going to happen except to say that we’re working to bring them home, to bring them out of Syria and to bring them home,” he
said, without elaborating.
Another U.S. citizen, Austin Tice, a journalist who was
taken captive in Syria in 2012, is still missing. President Joe Biden
said last week that he believes Tice is still alive despite there being “no direct evidence.” Biden stated that his administration remains committed to bringing him home.
Thousands of political prisoners, who had been detained following the country’s civil war that began in 2011, had been freed as Syrian rebels broke into detention facilities across the country after Assad’s ouster.
The Assad regime was toppled by a number of rebel groups that
were led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, an organization classified by the United States as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. Its leader, Muhammad al-Jawlani, is wanted by the United States, which has
offered $10 million for information leading to his capture or assassination.
Jackson Richman, Reuters, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
