According to military documents revealed in the WikiLeaks archives, the three US hikers jailed in Iran, one of who has been released, may have been seized on the Iraqi side of the border.
A US report regarding the day the three were “surrounded by armed men” and “taken to the Iranian border” details a frenetic effort to find the three Americans, according to the report. Following their capture, the classified document speculates that “the lack of coordination on the part of these hikers, particularly after being forewarned, indicates an intent to agitate and create publicity regarding international policies on Iran.”
On July 31, the Monitor reported that an article in the Nation magazine suggested that “Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal were arrested on the Iraqi side of the poorly marked border by Iranian guards who briefly crossed a few yards into Iraq to pick them up. It reported that the man likely responsible for their arrest – the head of the Revolutionary Guard intelligence for the region – has since been imprisoned for a string of kidnappings and murders.”
