U.S. military to release 9 Iranians captured in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. military said on Tuesday it would release nine Iranians detained in Iraq in recent months, including the two among the five captured earlier this year in Arbil, capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

    "It is our intent to release nine Iranians, currently in custody, in the near future," U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, director of the Multi-National Force-Iraq's communications division, told a news conference in Baghdad's GreenZone.

    "Two of the nine were detained in Arbil in January of this year," he said, adding that the other seven were detained at various time in other parts of Iraq.

    The U.S. forces arrested five Iranians in January in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil, and accused them of being members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' elite Qods Force. But Iran said the five were diplomats working in Iraq.

    Smith said that the nine Iranians have been assessed as none of them pose a further threat to Iraqi security.

    U.S. officials accused Iran of training Shiite militias in Iraq and supplying them with weapons, including armored piercing roadside bombs, but Iran denies the accusations.