Iran Says It Arrested 3 American Hikers

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BAGHDAD — Efforts were under way on Saturday to secure the release of three American hikers who were arrested in Iran after they crossed the border from the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the Kurdish government said.

Iranian state television confirmed Saturday that the Americans had been detained Friday after crossing the border from northern Iraq. The station, Al Alam, said Iranian border guards had first warned the Americans “not to get near the border.”

A State Department spokesman, Robert A. Wood, said that the United States had seen the Iranian reports and had asked Switzerland, which represents American interests in Iran, to confirm them with Iranian authorities and provide consular access to the Americans if the reports were true.

The Kurdish regional government, in a statement issued late Saturday, said the Americans had “lost their way due to their lack of familiarity with the location, and entered Iranian territory.”

The statement said they were part of a group of four Americans who entered Kurdistan on Wednesday by land from Turkey and spent the night at a backpackers’ hotel in Sulaimaniya. Kurdish security officers said that the Americans were students, ages 27 to 36, and that two of them had been studying Arabic in Damascus, Syria.

The statement said three of them headed to Ahmed Awa, a lush, mountainous area of waterfalls and caves near the Iranian border, on Thursday. A Kurdish official said the fourth stayed behind because he was ill.

The three travelers camped at the border on Thursday night, the Kurdish official said. A Kurdish security officer identified them as Shane Bower, Sara Short and Joshua. There were conflicting accounts of the third person’s last name.

On Friday morning, the official said, they “trekked into Iranian territory, knowingly or unknowingly, and found themselves detained by the Iranians.”

Iranian television and an employee at the Sulaimaniya hotel said that all four Americans had gone to Ahmed Awa but that the fourth turned back before the border.

Kurdish security forces found tents, blankets, food, notebooks and a bottle of whiskey among the belongings the group left behind at the campsite.

The fourth hiker, identified as Shaun Gabriel of California, was handed over to American Embassy officials in Baghdad, the Kurdish official said.

The border area between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran, a popular resort and hiking area, is also used by smugglers and Iranian Kurdish guerrillas opposed to Iran’s government.

The semiautonomous Kurdistan region has been a relative haven of security compared with the rest of Iraq. It is not uncommon to see American and other Western tourists traveling there without security guards.

Although the region is considered a staunch ally of the United States, local leaders have strong ties with Iran as well.

Separately, Iraq’s national security adviser said that it was possible that the five Britons who were abducted in 2007 by Shiite militias in Baghdad from inside the Finance Ministry were taken because of the consulting work one of them was doing to combat corruption in the ministry.

Peter Moore, the one hostage still believed to be alive, was installing computer systems intended to reduce theft and corruption in the ministry, said the adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie.

The bodies of two of the hostages were delivered to the British Embassy in Baghdad. The British government said last week that it believed that two others were killed by their captors.

Negotiations under way to obtain Mr. Moore’s release involve the release of Shiite militia leaders being held by the United States military in Iraq.

Mr. Rubaie said the kidnapping could not have happened without help from inside the ministry. “It is highly unlikely they would do this operation, this very detailed, accurate and literally high-standard operation, without inside help,” he said.

In the northern city of Mosul, a traffic police officer was shot dead outside his home, and two other officers were killed later in the same area, according to security officials.

In Baghdad, funerals were held Saturday for victims of the bombings of five Shiite mosques on Friday that killed at least 29.