Three Detained Americans Being Questioned In Iran

TEHRAN (Reuters) -- Iran has said three Americans detained in Iran on July 31 were being questioned by Iranian authorities, the country's Arabic-language Al-Alam television reported.

"They are definitely Americans. They were detained four days ago. We don't know whether they are tourists or not. We are questioning them," a local security official in Iran's western Kurdistan province, Iraj Hassanzadeh, told Al-Alam.

A source told the Arabic language station on August 1 that the three, believed to be two men and a woman, had been arrested after entering Iran.

A senior Kurdish security official, Qadr Hamajan, has said the three who disappeared close to northern Iraq's border with Iran had entered Iranian territory and been arrested.

They arrived in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, 260 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, from Arbil, the capital of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region, on July 29.

There is no clear border marker between Iran and Iraq at Ahmed Awa.