He political affairs department of the new interim government led by the rebel alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) stated this Thursday that it is committed to cooperating “directly“with the United States to find the American citizens kidnapped in Syria by the Bashar al Assad regime. The department confirmed in a statement that American Travis Timmerman was released today on the outskirts of Damascus and assured that “the search continues to find American citizen Austin Tice,” the journalist and former marine kidnapped in 2012 while covering the war in Syria.
“We affirm our willingness to cooperate directly with the United States administration to complete the search for American citizens missing by the Al Assad regime,” the note stated. On the 6th, two days before the rebels took Damascus and overthrew Al Assad, the Tice family stated that the informant continues vivo and is in good condition.
Tice, born in 1981, is a former Marine who decided to travel to Syria in 2012 to cover the war for various media outlets and disappeared in August of that year, just as he was planning to leave the country across the border with Lebanon. For his part, Timmerman was found this Thursday alive on the outskirts of Damascus, where he was interviewed by various Arab media outlets and international and indicated that he is a pilgrim who entered Syria illegally from Lebanon last May.
In his conversation with the private Saudi channel Al Arabiya, the released prisoner explained that it is cristiano and that he traveled to Syria on a religious pilgrimage seven months ago, when he was captured by the forces of the Al Assad regime. A journalist from the American channel NBC was also able to speak with him and, in that conversation, the man indicated that crossed on foot the border between Lebanon and Syria in May and that I had been reading “a lot” the Scriptures before deciding to undertake this journey.
However, a security officer on the Syrian border saw him and he was detained, according to the story he gave to the NBC.
Thousands released
Thousands of prisoners in Syrian prisons have been released in recent days after the Islamist group Levant Liberation Organization (Hayat Tahrir al Sham or HTS, in Arabic), heir to the former Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, controlled Damascus, and overthrew to the Bashar al Assad regime.
Tice’s mother, Debra Ticeassured on Friday that he had information from the US Government that his son is alive and is being “well treated.” Tice worked as a freelance photojournalist for several media outlets, including Agence France Presse (AFP), McClatchy NewsThe Washington Post newspaper and the CBS network.
The 31-year-old was detained at a checkpoint in Daraya, a suburb of the capital Damascus, on August 14, 2012. Assad fled Syria over the weekend after a lightning offensive of Islamist rebels put an end to half a century of his family’s iron rule.
