Iran to accuse 3 U.S. hikers of spying?

Three American hikers who accidentally crossed into Iran from Kurdish Iraq while on a hiking trip in the resort town of Ahmed Awaa were surrounded and arrested by Iranian troops on Friday.

There is no indication that the three were working as spies, but given Iran’s recent track record and the current tense state of American-Iranian relations, it’s quite likely this charge will come into play. It’s possible Iran will want to use the hikers as bargaining chips, and what better way to do so than by accusing them of espionage?

According to ABC News, the Americans currently in Iranian custody are two writers and an environmental worker. The writers are both based in the Middle East – Shane Bauer is a freelance journalist and Sarah Shroud is a writer and teacher. Joshua Fattal is the environmental worker. Perhaps especially worrying is the fate of Bauer, whose website tells us that he is a fluent Arabic speaker whose work has been published in the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor and The Nation. He graduated with a degree in peace and conflict studies from Berkeley. His profile seems just the sort that Iranian authorities would pounce on, recalling the story of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi whose detention and subsequent release from a Tehran prison is still very fresh for many Americans – not to mention the fate of two female American journalists detained and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for allegedly crossing the border from China into North Korea.

Iran has confirmed to Iraqi officials that the three hikers were in fact detained because they entered Iranian territory without legal permission. A Kurdish official working the border said that U.S. helicopters and humvees have moved into Halabja, which is near Ahmed Awaa, to search for the missing nationals.

The last anyone heard from them was on Friday, when they reportedly contacted the fourth member of their travelling group, who had chosen to stay at the hotel in Sulaimaniyah, near the border, instead of going on the hiking trip, as he hadn’t been feeling well. His friends told Shon Meckfessel, an English teacher from Seattle, that they had been surrounded.

Thus far, it looks like Iran’s going to make the U.S. work hard for a release. Swiss diplomats, who represent U.S. diplomatic interests in Iran, scheduled a meeting to meet with officials about the fate of the hikers, but the meeting has been pushed back to Wednesday.