U.S. Frees 9 Iranians in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Nine Iranians were released today from American custody in Iraq, including two the military had accused of being members of an elite Iranian force suspected of arming Shiite extremists in Iraq.

The nine were released to Iraqi officials, and were being transferred to the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, the American military said in a statement. They were expected to return to Iran later today, it said.

Meanwhile, the American military said it was investigating a "hard landing" by one of its helicopters during a operation a day earlier near Samarra, and whether the incident could have been due to hostile fire or other insurgent activity. Some 16 suspects were killed and 44 captured in raids over the past 48 hours in northern Iraq, the military said.

The nine Iranians released today included two men — identified by the military for the first time as Brujerd Chegini and Hamid Reza Asgari Shukuh — who were among five people captured when American forces stormed an Iranian government office in the northern city of Irbil in January.

At the time, American officials accused them of being members of Iran's elite Quds Force, an arm of the Revolutionary Guards that Washington has accused of funding and arming Shiite extremists fighting American forces in Iraq. Iran said the five were diplomats working in a facility that was undergoing preparations to be a consular office.

The building, along with another Iranian office in Sulaimaniyah, was shut after the January 11 raid. Both offices — located in the two largest cities of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish zone — reopened Tuesday as Iranian consulates.

Iraqi Kurds, like the country's Shiite Arabs, maintain close ties with Shiite-dominated Iran, despite their warm relationship with America.

The American statement said the Iranians were released after a "careful review of individual records to determine if they posed a security threat to Iraq, and if their detention was of continued intelligence value."

"All nine individuals were determined to no longer pose a security risk," it said.