Travis Timmerman, 29, who has been missing for about seven months, has been found alive in Syria.
The Gateway Pundit reported on the sudden, dramatic takeover of the Syria Arabic Republic by opposition rebels with ties to ISIS and Al Qaeda.
After long-time ruler Bashar al Assad and his family fled the capital, Damascus, for Moscow, thousands of prisoners were released from Assad’s infamous torture prisons.
One of those freed prisoners was Timmerman who says he was imprisoned in Syria after crossing into the country during a “pilgrimage” to Damascus without a visa.
His recovery has been called “a Christmas miracle” by worried family and friends.
NBC reports that Timmerman’s family “had no clue he was in Syria.”
Timmerman was found wandering the streets before being taken in by locals.
“I was on a pilgrimage to Damascus,” he told NBC News in a building on the outskirts of the capital. He said he had spent three days living in a mountain area around the border between Lebanon and Syria “without food and water” before he was spotted by a border guard and detained.
Timmerman said the regime imprisoned him for months, during which “I was fed well, I always had water, the only difficulty was not being able to go to the bathroom” regularly.
Rebel forces released him as they broke into regime prisons across the country to free detainees.
Timmerman said he had spent the past few days wandering the streets barefoot, sleeping outside and in an abandoned house. He was found once again by a local he asked for water and subsequently appeared in the video that quickly spread across social media and drew the media’s attention.
Watch:
Initially, Timmerman was mistaken for missing American journalist Austin Tice.
Tice, a former Marine turned journalist, was kidnapped in 2012 while reporting in Syria.
The FBI said in a statement, “Given recent events in Syria, the FBI is renewing our call for information that could lead to the safe location, recovery, and return of Austin Bennett Tice, who was detained in Damascus in August 2012.”
“The FBI and our government partners remain committed to bringing Austin home to his family, and we are still offering a reward of up to $1 million for information that leads to Austin’s safe return. If you have information, please email [email protected] or submit a tip via tips.fbi.gov. You can also contact your local FBI office of the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.”
