Travis Timmerman, the American who said he was released from a Syrian prison in the middle of fall of deposed president Bashar al-AssadThe American dictatorship has been driven out of the country by the American army, a US defense official confirmed to CBS News on Friday.
Timmerman, 29, who disappeared into Syria’s notorious prison system about seven months ago, was taken to the U.S. military base at Al Tanf, then evacuated from Syria by helicopter and handed over to the U.S. State Department. A second defense official told CBS News he was flown to Jordan.
Mouaz Moustafa, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, which worked with the rebels to arrange for Timmerman’s transfer to a safe location, shared a photo of Timmerman’s handover to U.S. forces.
“Pete Timmerman aka Travis is safe and sound and back in American hands, thank you to the incredible (Syrian Contingency Task Force) team for making this possible!” Moustafa wrote in an article on X.
Timmerman, a Missouri native, told CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer on Thursday that he was released from prison earlier in the week after rebels overthrew Assad’s government. He said two men armed with AK-47s broke down his prison door on Monday with a hammer.
“My door was kicked in, that woke me up,” Timmerman said. “I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the war might have been more active than it ended up being. … Once we got out there was no resistance, there was There was no real fighting.”
Timmerman said he went to Syria for a Christian “spiritual purpose” and that his prison experience “wasn’t too bad.” He said he was arrested when he entered Syria without authorization seven months ago, after spending a month in neighboring Lebanon.
“I was never beaten. The only problem was that I couldn’t go to the toilet whenever I wanted. They only let me out three times a day to go to the toilet,” he said. declared.
Timmerman said he left the prison with a large group and began walking away.
The 29-year-old’s family told CBS News foreign correspondent Ian Lee they were thrilled he was alive and well.
“It’s hard not to think negative thoughts at that time. We kind of thought that would be the worst outcome for us,” said Timmerman’s cousin, Mandy Pentridge.
Timmerman is from Urbana, Missouri, about 50 miles north of Springfield in the southwest part of the state. He earned a degree in finance from Missouri State University in 2017, the Associated Press reported.
Haley Ott and
contributed to this report.
