Iran arrests three Americans near Iraqi border

Iran arrested three Americans who "infiltrated" through the border with Iraq after they went missing in the area, state-owned al-Alam television said on Saturday, in the Islamic republic's first confirmation of the incident.

"An informed Iranian source confirmed the arrest of three Americans after they infiltrated through the Iraqi border," the Arabic-language television station reported.

A senior Kurdish security official said on Saturday that three tourists, believed to be American, who disappeared close to northern Iraq's border with Iran, had entered Iranian territory and been arrested.

In northern Iraq, a Kurdish official said earlier that three U.S. backpackers were arrested after having been warned on the Iraqi side not to hike in the mountains because of the proximity of the border with Iran.

The tourists had arrived in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, 260 kilometers (160 miles) northeast of Baghdad, from Arbil, the capital of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region, on Wednesday.

Beshro Ahmed, media adviser for general security in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, said the two men and a woman had entered from Turkey earlier along with a fourth American who did not join the trek because he was ill.

Ahmed named the three as Shane Bower, Sara Short and Joshua Steel, while Shaun Gabriel Maxwell stayed behind in their hotel in the Kurdish region's second largest city of Sulaimaniyah.

Ill-fated trek

"On Thursday, three of them went to the summer resort at Ahmed Awa," Ahmed said of an area about 90 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of Sulaimaniyah.

Ahmed Awa is a cool and heavily forested area popular with Iraqis seeking to escape the country's high summer temperatures.

The mountainous region has several youth hostels, one of which the three American tourists stayed at, but the nearby border with Iran is not clearly marked.

The (Kurdish) tourist police in the area asked them not to climb the mountains because the Iranian border was very close," Ahmed said.

"On Friday, they went close to the mountains, and climbed them. Then they called their friend in the hotel telling him that they were arrested by Iranian forces at the border," Ahmed said.

"Shaun was in the hotel and he called the U.S. embassy in Iraq to tell them about this information, and the Americans came to the hotel and took him."

Speaking to AFP earlier, a U.S. embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad said: "We've seen the reports and are looking into it but can't confirm anything at this time."

On Friday, they went close to the mountains, and climbed them. Then they called their friend in the hotel telling him that they were arrested by Iranian forces at the borde

Beshro Ahmed, Kurdish security media adviser