An American released in Syria on Thursday said he was on a Christian pilgrimage when he crossed into the country on foot seven months ago and was arrested by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Travis Timmerman appeared for the first time in a video that appeared online Thursday after rebels seized the capital Damascus and toppled Assad over the weekend.

In the video, a bearded Timmerman lay on a mattress under a blanket in what appeared to be a private home. A group of men in the video said he was being treated well and would be returned home safely, The Associated Press reported.

Some who watched the video initially believed Timmerman was Austin Tice, an American journalist and Marine veteran who disappeared in Syria 12 years ago. Tice has remained missing since Thursday morning, although U.S. officials have said they believe he is still alive.

ISRAEL’S UN AMBASSADOR insists the country is “not interfering” in regime change in Syria.

Timmerman later told Al-Arabiya television in an interview that he was arrested after illegally crossing into Syria on foot from the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle seven months ago.

He said guards treated him well in detention but could hear how others, who he believed to be young men, were being tortured daily.

Travis Timmerman, a US citizen, said he was detained in Syria for seven months. (ABDULAZIZ KETAZ/AFP via Getty Images)

“It was fine. I was fed. I got water. The only difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to,” he said, noting that guards only let him out three times a day.

“I was not beaten and the guards treated me decently,” he added.

Timmerman said he entered Syria on foot from Lebanon during a Christian pilgrimage. (Emin Sansar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

U.S. officials did not immediately comment on Timmerman.

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Meanwhile, the Biden administration sent the U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, to Lebanon earlier this week in hopes of gathering information on Tice’s whereabouts.

The State Department’s Reward for Justice program is offering $10 million for information to help find Austin Tice. (The State Department Justice Award)

Tice was arrested in Damascus in August 2012 while covering the uprising against the Assad regime that marked the start of the Syrian civil war.

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Tice was last seen in a video that surfaced weeks after his disappearance. It showed him blindfolded, being held down by armed men, saying, “Oh, Jesus.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.