American Travis Timmerman is handed over to U.S. forces in Syria : NPR

ALONG THE M2 HIGHWAY in southern Syria — The journey of a younger Missouri man free of a Syrian jail when the regime fell earlier this month started with a wilderness non secular pilgrimage earlier this yr and ended on a distant desert freeway. That’s the place he was handed over to U.S. custody on Friday.

A U.S. fighter jet flew overhead because the American man walked with an official from Syria’s interim authorities to satisfy U.S. particular forces positioned in entrance of MRAP armored autos on the abandoned freeway.

The previous lawyer and author is named Pete Timmerman to Missouri authorities who have been trying to find him. However he simply calls himself Travis.

A U.S. particular forces operative frisked Timmerman for weapons, after which a commanding officer requested him to substantiate his id.

Requested for his full identify, he stated, “Simply Travis.”

Timmerman, 29, confirmed he had been held in detention for seven months and that he had entered Syria from Lebanon.

With that, the officer reached out his hand and stated, “Travis — welcome house.”

After hugging a Syrian American activist, the Syrian official and a few of the Syrian fighters who had been caring for him, Timmerman was escorted into one of many American armored autos and pushed away.

Earlier within the day, NPR had accompanied the convoy bringing Timmerman from Damascus to southern Syria, close to a U.S. base not removed from the Jordanian border. Over breakfast earlier than the convoy departed, Timmerman spoke with NPR about his time in jail, his Christian religion — and what drove him to Syria. 

Consuming olives, he used one among his lengthy fingernails to fastidiously scrape all of the flesh from the pit, as he did in jail to keep away from losing any of them.

Timmerman stated he didn’t need to give formal interviews or have his voice recorded as a result of it didn’t match with the religious modesty he labored to domesticate. He allowed images to be taken. He stated he spent a lot of his time in jail meditating, attaining a religious readability that he had by no means had.

“My world modified,” he stated.

Within the Syrian jail, he stated, he mirrored on his life earlier than his arrest. He had been a lawyer in Chicago, working towards household legislation and writing what he described as a coming-of-age novel. He stated he doesn’t plan to publish the novel as a result of he isn’t inquisitive about business ventures. 

“God has since known as me to serve him,” he stated.

Timmerman had instructed his mom when he left the U.S. that he was going to Hungary. He didn’t need to fear her. As a substitute, he traveled to Beirut by way of the Czech Republic and walked throughout the border into Syria with a smuggler. He was arrested after fasting for 3 days within the Syrian mountains, when he went to assemble cherries from an orchard and was noticed by a border guard. 

He says he’s now a greater individual due to the time he spent in jail.

When NPR contacted Timmerman’s mom, Stacey Collins Gardiner, she stated: “Inform him I like him very, very a lot and I have been crying for him day-after-day. I have been a nervous wreck, it is simply been loopy for me.”

After his launch together with different detainees when the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell, Timmerman was discovered strolling barefoot in a Damascus suburb. The household of a Syrian girl who was additionally freed took him to their house and gave him tea and oranges.

When Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian American activist, realized that an American had been discovered, he contacted U.S. officers and introduced Travis to Syria’s international ministry. There Timmerman had his first bathe in seven months. International ministry employees purchased him trainers and new garments.

“The brand new authorities in Damascus is appearing in good religion,” stated Moustafa, director of the Syrian Emergency Activity Pressure. “However this illustrates the significance that there have to be official delegations to Damascus.”

The U.S. has no direct diplomatic presence in Syria. Moustafa stated he is aware of of no less than six different Individuals lacking in Syria. He believes that others, not imprisoned, have by no means been formally reported as lacking.

“Nobody knew that Travis was in Syria when he went lacking,” he stated.

Invoice Chappell contributed to this story from Washington, D.C.