An American who turned up in Syria on Thursday said he was detained after crossing into the country on foot seven months ago on a Christian pilgrimage. Travis Timmerman appears to have been among thousands of people released from the country's notorious prisons after rebels reached Damascus over the weekend,

Travis Timmerman, an American from Missouri who was imprisoned in Syria, told NBC News he had been on a pilgrimage to Damascus. Video led some to thing he was Austin Tice.

The man identifying himself only as “Travis,” and said that he was a pilgrim who had been detained after crossing into Syria on foot.

A man identifying himself as Missourian Travis Timmerman tells CBS News he was liberated from a Syrian prison upon dictator Bashar al-Assad's ouster.

Timmerman, 29, had not contacted his family for months after he went on a trip to Eastern Europe. His discovery came in the wake of the overthrow of the Assad regime.

DAMASCUS, Syria — A Missouri man found in Syria told ... Authorities in Missouri and Hungarian capital Budapest had earlier this year put out missing person reports for a man named Pete ...

Syria — An American man who identified himself as Pete Travis Timmerman was found in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus by local residents on Thursday. Timmerman was last seen in Budapest ...

The 29-year-old from Missouri's Ozarks had last been seen in Budapest, Hungary. He said he was detained earlier this year after crossing into Syria on foot from Lebanon and held in prison until the fall of the Assad regime. DAMASCUS, Syria — An American ...

A Missouri man found in Syria told NBC News on Thursday he spent ... Authorities in Missouri and Hungarian capital Budapest had earlier this year put out missing person reports for a man named ...

The man told reporters that his name was Travis Timmerman and that he had entered Syria on a religious pilgrimage. He said he had been detained for months.

We hold Bashar al-Assad and his criminal regime accountable for the consequences of Austin’s disappearance and the pain inflicted on his mother — pain, tears and separation," a spokesman told NBC News.

An American man found wandering the streets outside the Syrian capital of Damascus barefoot identified himself as Pete Travis Timmerman on Thursday. Timmerman was last seen in Budapest, Hungary,