Is Iran Detaining American Soldiers?

Sep 19, 2010 by James

An Iranian news agency, which is semi-official, announced that Iran was holding seven U.S. soldiers who were caught trying to enter the country. The Fars News agency said that it could not say where the incident took place and that it had no further information on the arrests nor did they cite a source for their article. Reports from various news agencies say that no U.S. troops are typically stationed where the arrests may have happened. Al-Jazeera also cited the Fars report, which added that “Two Iranians accompanying the troops were also arrested.”

American officials have said that they have heard nothing about the arrests and Iran has even denied that they are holding American soldiers; they lie a lot though. Reports say that the Fars News Agency is supposedly close to the “revolutionary guards” of Iran and while it is a semi-official news agency they have made huge mistakes in the past. Announcing the arrest of American soldiers does not seem like a mistake but more like propaganda.

It is highly unlikely that members of the U.S. military would be caught wandering into Iran and even if American soldiers were I highly doubt they would have been taken alive. It also comes right as Iran is demanding the release of several Iranians being detained in the U.S. so it could just be a leverage ploy. The report also comes as the American “hiker” returns home to the United States after being held in Iran for a year as an alleged spy.

The country’s Arabic language television al-Alam has quoted the Revolutionary Guard, who are responsible for border security, as saying that no such incident has happened. The region where the incident supposedly happened was reported as being the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan. Another Defense Department official said that no U.S. troops were reported missing in that area or any area near Iran. So it appears as if Iran’s Fars News has either made a massive mistake or just created a very short lived propaganda campaign.

Source: BBC, JP