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,

DAMASCUS, Syria — A Missouri man found in Syria told NBC News on ... Authorities in Missouri and Hungarian capital Budapest had earlier this year put out missing person reports for a man named Pete Timmerman, with Hungarian police identifying him as ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Authorities say the suspect does not fit the usual profile of perpetrators of extremist attacks. The man described himself as an ex-Muslim who was highly critical of Islam and in many posts on social media expressed support for the far-right anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Authorities have identified the suspect as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.

Nearly a million Syrians in Germany alone have made new lives. But after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, some politicians across the continent have suggested that refugees could return home.