Last July, three Americans were arrested by Iranian forces for allegedly crossing the Iranian border to conduct espionage. However, a five-month investigation by The Nation and the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute has located two witnesses who claim the Americans were arrested on Iraqi territory, not in Iran.
The Nation
Click on the push pins or the blue line to receive more information. View Map of the Iran-Iraq Border Where Hikers Were Seized in a larger map.
Iranian officials have asserted that the American hikers Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd, who were taken into custody last July, were arrested on Iranian territory. However, two witnesses to the arrest claim it took place in Iraq. The witnesses are residents of a Kurdish village in Iraq called Zalem (labeled in the map above with the yellow push pin), which lies a few miles from the Iran border. Both witnesses separately reported noticing the three Americans as they hiked up a mountain in the scenic Khormal region, which straddles the border between Iran and Iraq (labeled in the map above as the blue border line).
Once captured, Bauer, Fattal and Shourd were sped by car to the local headquarters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Marivan (labeled in the map above with the green push pin), a town close to the border in the province of Kurdistan.
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