Missing American freed from Syrian prison

The big picture: Timmerman, originally from Missouri, told NBC News that he had crossed the border from Lebanon to Syria on a religious pilgrimage earlier this year before being detained by Syrian officials.

• "My Lord sent me to Damascus," he said to NBC on Thursday.
• Timmerman was last seen in Budapest, Hungary, and he estimated to CBS News that he entered Syria about seven months ago. Missing person reports in Hungary and Missouri were released earlier this year for Pete Timmerman and Travis Pete Timmerman, per NBC News.
• The State Department did not respond to Axios' request for comment.

State of play: Timmerman was released earlier in the week by rebel forces, who have freed thousands of detainees in prisons across the country since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad.

• Timmerman said he spent days wandering barefoot in streets outside Damascus after his release. He asked a local for water and appeared in a video that spread on social media, per NBC.

Between the lines: That social media video resulted in Timmerman being misidentified by some as American journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing in Syria for 12 years.

• President Biden said on Sunday he believes Tice is alive.

Zoom out: A coalition of armed rebel groups launched an offensive in late November and took over nearly all of Aleppo within a matter of days. They continued to liberate towns along the route to the capital, Damascus, which they seized control of on Sunday.

• More than 14 million Syrians have been displaced from their homes as a result of the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.
• Assad has fled to Moscow and been granted political asylum with his family.

Go deeper:

• Toppling of Assad transforms Middle East after year of chaos
• ISIS, refugees, populism: How Syria changed everything