Man Found in Syria Says He Is Missing American Travis Timmerman

Syria’s new authorities said on Thursday that an American citizen who had been imprisoned while Bashar al-Assad was in power had been found outside Damascus and handed over to the rebel group that now controls the capital.

In interviews with international news media, the man appeared to identify himself as Travis Timmerman, an American who is believed to have gone missing from Budapest, Hungary, earlier this year. In a video aired on Thursday by the news channel Al Arabiya, someone is heard asking the man if his name is Travis Timmerman. The man says, “That’s right.”

The State Department said it was aware of an American found outside Damascus and was “seeking to provide support.”

Hisham al-Eid, the mayor of Al-Thihabiyeh, a poor, partly rural town east of Damascus, said the man had been found on Thursday morning on a main road. He was barefoot and cold but otherwise seemed to be in good health, Mr. al-Eid said.

The man told reporters he had entered Syria from Lebanon on a Christian pilgrimage, and had been detained for several months. He said he had received food and water while in detention, and was allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day.

“The guards treated me decently,” the man, wearing a beard and a gray hoodie, told the reporters. But he said that he heard others being tortured “daily.”