Tice, previously a U.S. Marine Corps officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was reporting as a freelance journalist from inside Syria during the country's civil war when he stopped tweeting in August 2012.

The 29-year-old said he was detained earlier this year after crossing into Syria on foot from Lebanon and held in prison until the fall of Assad. Timmerman's family called it a "Christmas miracle."

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. Timmerman was held for seven months after entering Syria illegally,