U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged Thursday in Aqaba, Jordan, that an American national has been found in Syria and that the Biden-Harris administration is working to bring him home.
Blinken did not identify the American, but he was described on social media as Travis Timmerman, a Missouri resident.
A video circulated Thursday showing Syrian rebels caring for an American who was found in one of Bashar al-Assad's prisons, which collapsed amid a rebel advance on Sunday.
It is unclear exactly how and why Timmerman ended up in Syria, or why he was imprisoned. He was reportedly tortured by the regime.
As Breitbart News reported early Thursday:
Timmerman appears to be a civilian who decided to travel to Syria on his own for personal reasons. He told reporters he was a Christian and was “reading a lot of the Bible” when he went missing in Hungary. After reading this reading, he decided to make a pilgrimage to Damascus, the ancient city that played an important role in St. Paul's conversion. Timmerman reportedly entered Syria illegally and wandered the border area for three days before being arrested by border guards.
Tice, a journalist, has been missing since 2012. The United States believes Mr. Tice is still alive.
Other prisoners, many for the first time in decades, have emerged from Assad's prisons, including Christian activists abducted from Lebanon.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. He is the author of a recently published e-book. Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 US Presidential Election. his recent book, red novembertells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
