American found in Syria named as Travis Timmerman
An update on the news that an American man, initially but mistakenly thought to be the missing journalist Austin Tice, has been found in Syria (via AP).
He’s been identified as Travis Timmerman.
An American who says he crossed into Syria on foot has been released after seven months in detention.
Travis Timmerman told the Al-Arabiya TV network in an interview on Thursday that he had been treated well. He said he had crossed into Syria from Lebanon on a religious pilgrimage.
He appeared in videos circulating online earlier in the day in which rebels said they had located him and were keeping him safe. Some people who saw the videos initially mistook him for Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012.
Timmerman told Al-Arabiya that he spent a month in the eastern Lebanese city of Zahle, from where he crossed into Syria illegally.
He said he had heard other young men being tortured while he was detained but that he himself had not been mistreated.
“It was OK. I was fed. I was watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to,” he said. He said he was only allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day.
“I was not beaten and the guards treated me decently,” he said.
Key events
Summary
Here’s a look at where things stand:
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US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that he is working to bring Travis Timmerman, the US citizen who was found in Syria, back to the United States, Reuters reports. Timmerman was found in the suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and said he was detained after crossing into Syria on foot on a Christian pilgrimage earler this year.
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Some EU countries have doubled down on their decision to rapidly halt asylum procedures for Syrian migrants in Europe, but said it is too early to consider sending home any of the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled since 2011. Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and non-EU country Norway have suspended asylum applications from Syrians in the wake of Bashar Assad’s fall.
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The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is increasing its programmes to reach 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure people across Syria, saying the recent hostilities have displaced hundreds of thousands across the country, worsening an already dire food security situation. “Right now, commercial supply routes are compromised, food prices are soaring, and the Syrian currency is depreciating,” said WFP’s country director in Syria, Kenn Crossley.
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Israel says it will “continue to act to defend itself” after France urged it to withdraw from the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday he had ordered the army to “seize” the demilitarised zone in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights after rebels swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power.
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US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that the role of the Kurdish-led SDF fighters was “critical” to prevent an insurgence of the Islamic State, Agence France-Presse reports. Blinken, who is currently on a visit to Jordan to discuss the situation in Syria with King Abdullah, said: “At a time when we want to see this transition… to a better way forward for Syria, part of that also has to be ensuring that ISIS doesn’t rear its ugly head again. And critical to making sure that doesn’t happen are the so-called SDF – the Syrian Democratic Forces.”
The chemical weapons watchdog Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is warning of the potential dangers of Israel’s strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons sites, Agence France-Presse reports.
Fernando Arias, OPCW’s director general, said his group was “following closely” the reports of Israel saying it struck “remaining chemical weapons or long-range missiles and rockets in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists.”
We do not know yet whether these strikes have affected chemical weapons-related sites. Such airstrikes could create a risk of contamination,” Arias said.
“Another real risk would be the destruction of valuable evidence for investigations by different independent international bodies related to past use of chemical weapons,” he added.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that the role of the Kurdish-led SDF fighters was “critical” to prevent an insurgence of ISIS, Agence France-Presse reports.
Blinken, who is currently on a visit to Jordan to discuss the situation in Syria with King Abdullah, said:
“At a time when we want to see this transition… to a better way forward for Syria, part of that also has to be ensuring that ISIS doesn’t rear its ugly head again. And critical to making sure that doesn’t happen are the so-called SDF – the Syrian Democratic Forces.”
The US is urging Syrian rebels to form an ‘inclusive’ government, according to the US state department.
The Guardian’s international staff reports:
The US is mounting a fresh diplomatic effort in the Middle East, hoping to end the war in Gaza and push rebels who have taken power in Syria to form a “credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance”.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, met Jordan’s King Abdullah in the Red Sea town of Aqaba on Thursday – the first stop of a short regional tour.
The future of Syria after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad dominated discussions, as well as issues including the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, humanitarian aid, and “preventing Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbours”, a spokesperson said.
For the full story, click here:
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan have discussed the situation in Syria on a phone call, Reuters reports, citing the Russian foreign ministry.
“The foreign ministers of Russia and the United Arab Emirates expressed their support for holding an international meeting as soon as possible in order to launch an inclusive national dialogue with the participation of all political and ethno-confessional forces in the Syrian Arab Republic as soon as possible,” the foreign ministry said.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that he is working to bring Travis Timmerman, the US citizen who was found in Syria, back to the United States, Reuters reports.
Timmerman was found in the suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and said he was detained after crossing into Syria on foot on a Christian pilgrimage earler this year.
Speaking from Jordan where he is discussing the situation in Syria with Jordan’s King Abdullah and other officials, Blinken said he had no updated on Austin Tice, an American journalist who was abducted in Syria in 2012.
Blinken added that the US was continuing its efforts to locate Tice, Reuters added.
Here’s our news story on Travis Pete Timmerman, the US man who was apparently imprisoned for seven months after travelling to Syria on a pilgrimage – and who was initially, and erroneously, believed to be the missing US reporter Austin Tice:
Some EU countries have doubled down on their decision to rapidly halt asylum procedures for Syrian migrants in Europe, but said it is too early to consider sending home any of the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled since 2011.
Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and non-EU country Norway have suspended asylum applications from Syrians in the wake of Bashar Assad’s fall. France is weighing whether to take similar action, at least until Syria’s new leadership and security conditions become clearer.
The decisions do not mean that Syrian asylum-seekers will be deported. The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, has said that currently “the conditions are not met for safe, voluntary, dignified returns to Syria”.
“We need to wait a few more days to see where Syria is heading now,” Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said. “What is the situation? What about the protection of minorities? What about the protection of the people? And then, of course, there could be repatriation.”
Asked by reporters whether it would make sense to organize repatriations at an EU level, Faeser said: “It would be very expedient to organise this together.”
But she stressed that Syrians who work in Germany and abide by its laws are welcome to stay. More than 47,000 asylum claims by Syrians are pending in Germany, a main destination in Europe for those who have fled since 2011.
“This is not a long term pause as far as I’m concerned,” Ireland’s justice minister, Helen McEntee, told reporters. “It’s really positive that the Assad regime has come to an end. At the same time, we can all see that it’s not clear what will happen next.”
The arrival in Europe in 2015 of well over 1 million refugees – most fleeing the conflict in Syria – sparked one of the EU’s biggest political crises as nations bickered over who should host them and whether other countries should be forced to help. Those tensions remain even today.
Almost 14,000 Syrians applied for international protection in Europe this year up to September, according to the EU’s asylum agency. Around 183,000 Syrians applied for asylum in all of last year. On average, around one in three applications are accepted. (Via AP)
The United States sees the fall of Bashar al-Assad as an extraordinary chance to rid Syria “once and for all” of chemical weapons used by his regime to kill or injure thousands of people in its civil war, a senior US official said on Thursday.
Washington will strongly back efforts by the global chemical weapons watchdog to eliminate Syria‘s chemical arsenal, Nicole Shampaine, US ambassador to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told Reuters in an interview ahead of a closed-door OPCW session on Syria in The Hague.
Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 as part of a US-Russian deal and agreed to completely destroy its chemical weaponry. But after more than a decade of inspections, Syria still possesses banned munitions and investigators found they were used repeatedly by Assad’s forces during the 13-year civil war.
“We want to finish the job and it’s really an opportunity for Syria‘s new leadership to work with the international community, work with the OPCW to get the job done once and for all,” Shampaine said.
She expects “there will be a lot of support in trying to seize this opportunity … and get Syria to comply with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention”.
The OPCW is a treaty-based organisation in the Netherlands tasked with implementing the 1997 chemical nonproliferation treaty. It oversaw the destruction of 1,300 metric tons of Syrian chemical weapons and precursors, a large portion on a U.S. ship equipped with specialised hydrolysis systems.
Assad-ruled Syria and its military ally Russia always denied using chemical weapons in Syria‘s devastating civil war.
Three investigations – a joint UN-OPCW mechanism, the OPCW’s Investigation and Identification team, and a UN war crimes investigation – concluded that Syrian government forces did use the nerve agent sarin and chlorine barrel bombs in the drawn-out conflict with opposition forces.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is increasing its programmes to reach 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure people across Syria, saying the recent hostilities have displaced hundreds of thousands across the country, worsening an already dire food security situation.
“Right now, commercial supply routes are compromised, food prices are soaring, and the Syrian currency is depreciating,” said WFP’s country director in Syria, Kenn Crossley.
“Essential items such as rice, sugar and oil are in short supply and bread prices have spiked, making it critically important that we scale-up our efforts to assist during this winter season.”
The WFP urgently requires $250m (£196.5m) in the next six months to buy and deliver food assistance for up to 2.8 million displaced and vulnerable people.
Almost 14 years of war have left many Syrians in a vulnerable state: some 12.9 million people were food insecure at the start of this year – including 3 million severely food insecure – while humanitarian assistance has declined significantly due to funding shortfalls.
“Food aid is not only a lifeline for ensuring nutritional needs are met during a crisis,” stressed Crossley, “it’s a reassuring presence that lets communities know they are not alone in what can feel like a very vulnerable, and isolating moment in their lives.”
Israel says it will “continue to act to defend itself” after France urged it to withdraw from the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday he had ordered the army to “seize” the demilitarised zone in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights after rebels swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power.
On Thursday, Israel said the seizure was aimed at defending the country.
It “was necessary for defensive reasons due to threats posed by jihadist groups operating near the border,” foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said on X.
“Israel will continue to act to defend itself and ensure the security of its citizens as needed.”
In a separate statement on Thursday, the prime minister’s office said that the collapse of Assad’s rule had created a “vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone”.
“That is why Israeli forces entered the buffer zone and took control of strategic sites near Israel’s border,” the statement said.
“This deployment is temporary until a force that is committed to the 1974 (armistice) agreement can be established and security on our border can be guaranteed.”
Israel’s latest statements came after France followed the UN and several countries in the region in demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from the buffer zone.
France’s foreign ministry called it “a violation” of the 1974 disengagement agreement that established the UN-patrolled buffer zone.
“France calls on Israel to withdraw from the zone and to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. (Via AFP)
Ben Saul, the UN’s special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, has also urged Israel to withdraw:
I urge Israel to withdraw from its unlawful occupation of additional Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights, on the pretext of countering terrorism, and in the absence of any armed attack on Israel justifying self-defence https://t.co/kNMNJHYpXn
— Prof Ben Saul – UN SR Human Rights & Counterterror (@profbensaul) December 11, 2024
Summary
It’s almost 3.45pm in Damascus. Here’s a quick summary of today’s developments:
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Israeli air strikes are reported to have killed at least 33 people, including 12 guards securing aid trucks in southern parts of the Palestinian territory on Thursday.
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is visiting Jordan and Turkey to try to rally regional countries to help advance efforts to reach an elusive Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, and ensure a smooth transition in Syria.
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Syria’s new government says the country’s constitution and parliament will be suspended for the duration of the three-month transition period following president Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow.
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An American who says he crossed into Syria on foot has been released after seven months in detention. Initial reports incorrectly suggested the man was the missing US reporter Austin Tice.
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The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the country has to live with the new “realities” of Syria after the toppling of Tehran-backed president Bashar al-Assad.
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Fifty-four journalists were killed worldwide while carrying out their work or because of their profession in 2024, a third of them by the Israeli army, according to an annual report by Reporters Without Borders.
Gaza’s civil defence agency says Israeli air strikes on Thursday killed at least 33 people, including 12 guards securing aid trucks in southern parts of the Palestinian territory.
The latest bloodshed came just hours after the UN general assembly called for an immediate ceasefire in the devastated territory.
Seven guards were killed in a strike in Rafah, while another attack left five guards dead in Khan Younis, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
“The occupation once again targeted those securing the aid trucks,” Bassal told AFP, adding that around 30 people, most of them children, were also wounded in the strikes.
“The trucks carrying flour were on their way to UNRWA warehouses,” Bassal noted, referring to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
“The occupation aims to destroy all services for citizens across the Gaza Strip.”
Witnesses later told AFP that residents looted flour from the trucks after the strikes.
The Israeli military said its forces “conducted precise strikes” overnight on armed Hamas militants present in the humanitarian corridor in southern Gaza.
“All of the terrorists that were eliminated were members of Hamas and planned to violently hijack humanitarian aid trucks and transfer them to Hamas in support of continuing terrorist activity, preventing them from reaching Gazan civilians, as was done in previous cases,” the military alleged in a statement.
It insisted it “does not strike humanitarian aid trucks and the humanitarian corridor remains open and active”.
Syria’s new government says the country’s constitution and parliament will be suspended for the duration of the three-month transition period following president Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow.
“A judicial and human rights committee will be established to examine the constitution and then introduce amendments,” the new government spokesman, Obaida Arnaout, told AFP.
The current constitution dates back to 2012 and does not specify Islam as the state religion.
Arnaout said a meeting would be held on Tuesday “between salvation government’ ministers and the former ministers” of Assad’s administration to carry out the transfer of power.
“This transitional period will last three months,” he added. “Our priority is to preserve and protect institutions.”
Speaking at the state television headquarters, now seized by the new rebel authorities, Arnaout pledged that they would institute “the rule of law”.
“All those who committed crimes against the Syrian people will be judged in accordance with the law,” he added.
Asked about religious and personal freedoms, he said “we respect religious and cultural diversity in Syria“, adding that they would remain unchanged.
The Sunni majority country was ruled with an iron fist by Assad, a follower of the Alawite offshoot of Shia Islam who sought to project himself as a protector of minority communities.
American found in Syria named as Travis Timmerman
An update on the news that an American man, initially but mistakenly thought to be the missing journalist Austin Tice, has been found in Syria (via AP).
He’s been identified as Travis Timmerman.
An American who says he crossed into Syria on foot has been released after seven months in detention.
Travis Timmerman told the Al-Arabiya TV network in an interview on Thursday that he had been treated well. He said he had crossed into Syria from Lebanon on a religious pilgrimage.
He appeared in videos circulating online earlier in the day in which rebels said they had located him and were keeping him safe. Some people who saw the videos initially mistook him for Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012.
Timmerman told Al-Arabiya that he spent a month in the eastern Lebanese city of Zahle, from where he crossed into Syria illegally.
He said he had heard other young men being tortured while he was detained but that he himself had not been mistreated.
“It was OK. I was fed. I was watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to,” he said. He said he was only allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day.
“I was not beaten and the guards treated me decently,” he said.
Syria’s new government thanks countries that reopened missions
Syria’s new government thanked eight countries on Thursday for swiftly reopening their diplomatic missions after a lightning rebel offensive ousted president Bashar al-Assad at the weekend.
The offensive, which took just 10 days to sweep across Syria and take the capital Damascus, stunned the world and brought an end to more than a half a century of brutal rule by the Assad clan.
The rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), appointed an interim prime minister on Tuesday to lead the country until March.
The new government’s department of political affairs issued a statement thanking Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman and Italy “for resuming the activities of their diplomatic missions in Damascus”.
After the rebels took Damascus, an “armed group” entered the residence of Italy’s ambassador in Damascus and stole three cars, the Italian government said on Sunday.
Qatar announced on Wednesday it would “soon” reopen its embassy in Damascus.
The move aimed to “strengthen the close historical fraternal ties between the two countries,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said.
The Gulf country also sought to “enhance coordination with relevant authorities to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid currently provided by Qatar to the Syrian people” via an air bridge, it added.
Doha closed its diplomatic mission in Damascus in July 2011 after an uprising against the Assad government turned into a 13-year-long civil war.
The war killed more than 500,000 people and forced half the population to flee their homes, with six million of them seeking refuge abroad. (Via AFP)
Reports that the US journalist Austin Tice – who disappeared 12 years ago near the Syrian capital – has been found appear to be incorrect.
Footage purporting to show Tice has appeared on social media this morning, but has been disputed by some prominent journalists:
The American who was found in Syria is not Austin Tice.
He told me his name is Travis. He refused to give a last name.
He said he was a “pilgrim” and that he crossed into Syria by foot before he was detained.
He was held in prison for seven months and said he was well treated.— Matt Bradley (@MattMcBradley) December 12, 2024
On Sunday, Joe Biden said he believed Tice was still alive, and said that Washington was committed to bringing him home after Bashar al-Assad’s ousting from power.
“We think we can get him back,” Biden told reporters at the White House, while acknowledging that “we have no direct evidence” of his status.
Tice, who is from Houston, has had his work published by the Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other outlets.
In a statement to the Post on Sunday, his parents, Marc and Debra Tice, said they were “eagerly anticipating seeing Austin walk free”, adding: “We are asking anyone who can do so to please assist Austin so he can safely return home to his family.”
A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held by armed men and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since. Syria has publicly denied that it was holding him.
Mouaz Moustafa from non-profit Syrian Emergency Task Force told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning that rebel groups were working to find Tice.
“He’s a hero. He went to cover the plight of the Syrian people from what Assad, Iran and Russia have been doing to them. And God willing, we bring him home alive, but we need to find him and bring him to his mom, no matter what. And the Syrians owe him a debt forever,” Moustafa said.
In the final months of the last Trump administration, two US officials – the government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, and Kash Patel, now Trump’s pick to lead the FBI – made a secret visit to Damascus to seek information on Tice and other Americans who had disappeared in Syria.
It was the highest-level talk in years between the US and Assad’s government, though Syrian officials offered no meaningful information on Tice.
Blinken arrives in Jordan
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has arrived in Jordan, according to AFP.
Blinken will also visit Turkey as he attempts to rally regional countries to help advance efforts to reach an elusive Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, and ensure a smooth transition in Syria, after the ousting of longtime authoritarian ruler Bashar al-Assad. His national security adviser Jake Sullivan is also scheduled to visit Israel, Qatar and Egypt in the coming days.
The outgoing top US diplomat headed straight to a meeting in the Red Sea city of Aqaba with King Abdullah II and will travel later in the day to Turkey.
Blinken has called for an “inclusive” process to form Syria’s next government that includes protections for minorities after Islamist rebels ended the iron-fisted rule of Assad, a member of the Alawite community.
Announcing his trip, the State Department said he would also call for a Syria that is not “a base of terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbours” – a nod to the concerns of Turkey and Israel, which has ramped up strikes on its historic adversary since Assad’s fall.
It is Blinken’s 12th visit to the Middle East since the 7 October, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, which has responded with a relentless military campaign in Gaza.
His previous trips have ended in disappointment as he sought a ceasefire between US ally Israel and Hamas.
President Joe Biden’s administration leaves office on 20 January.
President-elect Donald Trump has described Syria as “a mess” and said that the United States should not get involved, although he has not elaborated on US policy since Assad’s fall.
