I was on a pilgrimage to Damascus,” Travis Timmerman told NBC News in a building on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Thursday after his release following the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

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

Travis Timmerman, 29, from Missouri, was found this week by residents wandering barefoot in a suburb south of Syria's capital.

An American man found wandering the streets outside the Syrian capital of Damascus barefoot identified himself as Pete Travis Timmerman on Thursday. Timmerman was last seen in Budapest, Hungary, in June and had not been heard from in months.

A man freed from a Syrian prison on Thursday after monthslong imprisonment identified himself as Travis Timmerman, an American reported missing by law enforcement earlier this year after traveling to Hungary.

Travis Timmerman, a missing American from Missouri, was freed from a Syrian prison and found Thursday outside of Damascus trying to make his way out of the country on foot.