US flies freed American Travis Timmerman out of Syria

WASHINGTON: United States (US) 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 Travis Timmerman had been transferred to Jordan and was currently with State Department officials.

Read more: Syrian refugees in Europe fear being forced home after Assad’s fall

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.

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

Read more: US races to find captive journalist Austin Tice after Syria regime collapse

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.