Report: U.S. hikers seized by Iranian police in Iraqi territory

[Scurrilous]

Source: CNN

<snip>

"The mothers of U.S. hikers held by Iran said a magazine article that contradicts government claims they crossed the border before their arrests is "concerning" and raises many questions.

The article written for the July 12 edition of The Nation cites two witnesses who said they saw members of Iran's national police force cross the border into northern Iraq to apprehend Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal.

"The witnesses, who followed the Western-looking hikers out of curiosity, say that around 2 p.m. on July 31 (2009), as the hikers descended the mountain, uniformed guards from NAJA, Iran's national police force, waved the hikers toward the Iranian side using 'threatening' and 'menacing' gestures," the article says.

"When their calls were ignored, one officer fired a round into the air. As the hikers continued to hesitate, the guards walked a few yards into Iraqi territory, where they lack jurisdiction, and apprehended them," according to the article.

Bauer has previously denied government claims that the hikers crossed into Iranian territory."

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/24/iran.hikers/?fbid=iLIdaCOeBqQ

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US Hikers Were Seized in Iraq

<snip>

"Since their arrest last July by Iranian forces near the Iraq border, three Americans—Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd—have been at the center of a high-stakes diplomatic struggle between Tehran and Washington. Iranian authorities have repeatedly accused the three of entering Iran to conduct espionage.

Meanwhile, friends and family of the three, along with the State Department, the Committee to Protect Journalists and this magazine (Bauer has written for The Nation; see "Iraq's New Death Squad," June 22, 2009), have rejected the spying charge and suggested that the Americans accidentally crossed the border while on a recreational hike. Despite a well-publicized visit by the detainees' mothers in May, Iran has released little information about the circumstances of their arrest or the status of their case.

Now a five-month investigation by The Nation and the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute has located two witnesses to the arrest who claim that Bauer, Fattal and Shourd were on Iraqi territory when they were arrested—not in Iran, as Iranian officials have asserted. Two additional sources report that the Revolutionary Guards officer who likely ordered their detention has since been arrested on charges of smuggling, kidnapping and murder."

more

[jazzelle]

1. I feel terrible for those kids and their families.

and Iran is really becoming a world-wide pain.

[denverbill]

2. Well, what the hell were these kids doing exactly?

Who in their right minds travels to Iraq when it's in the middle of practically a civil war, then hikes around the border with Iran, a country who has pretty good reason to fear both the US and Iraq? There are a whole lot of people in that area who hate Americans and would like nothing better than to cut their heads off for propaganda. They were probably lucky to be caught by the Iranians instead of Sunni terrorists.

[jazzelle]

3. They are kids....not spies.

stupid kids , I agree.

Why doesnt iran send them home with a stern warning ?

[earthside]

4. Yes. What?

Frankly, it is reasonable for the Iranians to think that these "kids" are spies.

Because it is just absolutely true: what kind of idiots would otherwise be "hiking" in war-torn Iraq right on the Iranian border?

If they aren't spies, then, indeed, I hope they get home soon ... then we ought to put them on trial for being criminally stupid.

[Poll_Blind]

6. +1 Indeed.

:wtf:

PB

[leveymg]

8. It's a Kurdish breakaway area with CIA-Mossad funded groups that operate across the border.

These aren't just kids hiking the Presidential Trail in New Hampshire. See, http://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/27/report_u_s_sponsoring_kurdish_guerilla

Just because they're in their 20s doesn't make them less suspect. Ever heard of the Art Students Ring? Google it.

[Poll_Blind]

9. LOL, too true.

PB

[Poll_Blind]

5. I have no sympathy for these dumbasses. None at all. "Let's go hiking in Iraq near the Iranian...

...border!"

Tell me, when does that ever sound like a good or even sane idea?

I have no idea who these folks are or what their motivations are but if you want to go for nature walks in...Iraq and go hiking around the border with...Iran, your intentional, planned behavior describes a kind of idiocy which drops you way, way down on my "To Care About" list.

I find their story stretches the limits of credibility.

These people have a whole fucking planet to go walk on, they just happen to pick one of the most dangerous and contentious spots to do it?

PB

[Robb]

7. Well, an article in the Nation should convince Iran to release them.

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. Lamest cover story ever. And kids are not 30 years old.

Of all the places to go hiking in the world they just had to see the sights along the Iran/Iraq border. This latest round of blatant propaganda (Iran invading Iraq to get them) is just as unbelievable as the original "hiking" cover story. I guess this is the best the CIA can come up with after all those non-neocon veteran agents left or got fired during the GWB years. Sad.

[leveymg]

13. I don't think they work for the CIA.

More likely, contract agents for an allied country intel service.

[maxsolomon]

11. i buy that they could have been trekking

people are constantly pushing travel and recreation towards ever more extreme limits. i can totally see the extreme outdoor folks i've met, the kind that ski down volcanoes and mountain bike the iditarod trail, thinking that trekking on the iran/iraq border would be awesome. war zone/rebels/unexplored mountain region = very glamorous.

eventually, iran will release them.

[leveymg]

12. They aren't trekkies. The main guy has been operating as an "independent journalist" in Iraq

and had been in Israel recently.

I strongly doubt if he does this stuff for extreme sport and recreation.

Maybe not enough to put them on trial, but more than enough to hold as terrorism/espionage suspects. We'd do the same thing, and so would the Israelis.

[hayu_lol]

14. If these folks are students...

they are totally stupid and ignorant. As several previous posters have said...there are extreme hikes to be taken elsewhere...south America for example or Australia. They will have learned an important lesson when they finally get out of prison.

Was just a couple of weeks ago that the Iranians crossed the Iraqi Border to attack the northern Kurds. Turkey was on the other side of the Kurds and were attacking inside Iraq as well. Borders only mean something when Gaza and the Blockade is mentioned...no one else over there cares.

[leveymg]

15. Those are all borders drawn 90 years ago in the British Foreign Office

And, for some unfathomable reason people have been fighting and dying to preserve them ever since.

[conspirator]

16. They are lucky. Mexican kids who "play" on US border are shot nt