Tourists . . . yeah, right

Azagoth said:
What is there to doubt? They were hiking in on a well known, and well travelled, mountain route.
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Indeed, this region has many interesting hiking opertunities in wonderful mountainous landscapes.

I^ve been wanting to do some ski mountaineering in Iran for years nows ... they have some very respectable mountains
 
Evangelion said:
"Two of them students in Syria". There you go. I bet they're Arabs.
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They could be any ethnicity if they really are tourists. I bet they're post-grads though. 23-27 and male. All of whom had at least a year out after completing their batchelors degree, although what they were doing in that year out is unclear. They then transferred to a good university in Syria to do an MSC or PhD in Muslim Studies and Law or some other combination course with law or medicine that gives them a good reason to stick their noses into local culture and wander around being 'stupid' Americans. Americans by and large aren't stupid. They're anything but. They have had their pick of the world's intellectuals for the last 250 years and some of them are very clever indeed.

They do play on the 'stupid' tag a lot though, because everyone likes to believe it.

I'm afraid I'm with Stockhausen on this one. Where do you think the Intelligence Services get their information from? They insinuate people into interesting locations and let them grab every bit of info they can. Then a smart person somewhere else sifts it and decides what might be interesting, but not immediately useful, what's interesting and what's likely to get someone killed if they don't do anything about it. It's called humint and everyone is doing it, all the time. You can back it up with satellite reconnaissance and spy plane overflights, but there is nothing like eyes-on-the-ground to tell you what's going on.
 
Well I guess they could have family over there or they could originally be from Iran?

An official in the region told the BBC that the Iraqi border guards saw three Americans with big backpacks crossing the border, but they did not stop them because they thought Americans were allowed to go anywhere.
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Funny quote :p
 
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