US flies freed American Travis Timmerman out of Syria, official says

Timmerman went missing in June, according to his parents and was freed from prison earlier in the week after Syrian rebel groups ousted Assad.

By REUTERS DECEMBER 13, 2024 21:49

Travis Pete Timmerman, a US citizen who went missing in Syria, speaks to press after being found following the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 12, 2024. (photo credit: Emin Sansar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

American citizen Travis Timmerman has been flown out of Syria, where he was imprisoned before being released by rebels this week, a US official said on Friday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Timmerman had been transferred to Jordan and was currently with State Department officials.

Timmerman went missing in June, according to his parents. He was freed from prison earlier in the week after Syrian rebel groups ousted the country's longtime President Bashar al-Assad.

The White House on Thursday said that the US had no prior indication the man was in Syria.

Assad fled to Russia after a 13-year civil war and more than five decades of his family's autocratic rule, during which Syria ran one of the most oppressive police states in the Middle East.

Rebel fighters sit on a vehicle, after rebels seized the capital and ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 9, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AZAKIR/FILE PHOTO)

Following his ouster, Syrians flocked to the infamous prisons where the Assad regime is estimated to have held tens of thousands of detainees.

US abductee remains in Syria

Austin Tice, another US citizen who was abducted in Syria over a decade ago, has still not been found.

Tice, a former US Marine, and a freelance journalist was 31 when he was kidnapped in August 2012 while reporting in Damascus.