The U.S. military on Friday flew a missing American citizen out of Syria this week, after the stunning fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Travis Timmerman was transferred to U.S. forces in Syria on Friday, according to a defense official, and was flown to Jordan.
U.S. Central Command, the military headquarters in the Middle East region, is working with the State Department to ensure Timmerman can safely return home, the official added. He was freed from a prison in the capital city of Damascus earlier this week, a day after Assad’s regime collapsed to a coalition of opposition forces.
Timmerman, 29, had last been seen in Budapest, Hungary, in June and had not been seen or heard from in months.
He told The Associated Press that he had gone on a Christian pilgrimage to Lebanon and crossed over into Syria, where he was detained and questioned for hours before a transfer to a notorious prison known as Palestine Branch.
When he was first seen this week, Timmerman was confused for Austin Tice, an American freelancer journalist who has been missing since 2012 in Syria.
Timmerman, who is from Urbana, Mo., told NBC News that his imprisonment was good for him and that it was a “a time of solace, of meditation, and I’m stronger for it.”
