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Iran Releases Two American Hikers

By MATT BRADLEY And NOUR MALAS

Reuters

American hikers Shane Bauer, right, and Josh Fattal, sat in Tehran's Mehrabad airport before leaving for Oman on Sept. 21

CAIRO—Two American hikers detained in Iran for more than two years were released to Omani authorities, Iran's state news agency said on Wednesday, bolstering President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's diplomatic standing just in time for his annual appearance before the United Nations on Thursday.

The hikers' lawyer, Masoud Shafiei, said earlier on Wednesday that he was heading to the Tehran jail where Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29 years old, were detained, after Iranian courts approved a $1 million bail arrangement for both.

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Reuters

Shane Bauer, center, is greeted by fiancée Sarah Shourd, right, and another person after arriving in Oman from Iran on Wednesday night.

The two had been jailed in Iran since July 2009 and were sentenced last month to eight years in prison each for espionage and illegally crossing Iran's border. The hikers said they are innocent and were hiking along the unmarked border area in northern Kurdish-controlled Iraq when they were detained.

The freed hikers charged down the airplane stairway in Muscat to greet their families on Wednesday in what a family representative described as an "emotional" reunion.

The Sultanate of Oman, an ally of the U.S. in the Gulf, paid the bail for the hikers' release, said Mr. Shafiei.

Oman's quiet intermediary role reflects its unique position as an amenable partner to Iran amidst an Arab Gulf that tends to view Iran's rising regional power with profound suspicion. Oman's history of negotiating between Iran and the Arab world dates back to the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq during the 1980s, said Gary Sick, an expert on Iran and a professor of international affairs at Columbia University.

Two American hikers detained in Iran for more than two years have been released on bail of $1 million and handed over to Omani authorities. Matt Bradley has details on The News Hub.

Last week, an Iranian appeals court had agreed to set bail for the hikers at $500,000 each.

The release of Messrs. Bauer and Fattal mimicked a similar arrangement for the release of a third American hiker at the same time last year, as Mr. Ahmadinejad was traveling to New York to address the U.N. Sarah Shourd, Mr. Bauer's fiancée, was also released on a $500,000 bail posted by the sultanate of Oman in the Persian Gulf. Her case remains open.

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Reuters

Bauer, Fattal and their translator attended the first session of their trial at the revolutionary court in Tehran in February.

"Today can only be described as the best day of our lives," said the three hikers' family members in a statement released to the media on Wednesday evening. "We have waited for nearly 26 months for this moment and the joy and relief we feel at Shane and Josh's long-awaited freedom knows no bounds. We now all want nothing more than to wrap Shane and Josh in our arms, catch up on two lost years and make a new beginning, for them and for all of us."

U.S. President Barack Obama, in New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, said, "We're thrilled that the hikers were released.…We're thrilled for their families. It was the right thing to do. They shouldn't have been held in the first place."

The release is also something of a reprieve for the embattled Iranian president, who was humiliated last week when Iran's judiciary refused to free the hikers even after Mr. Ahmadinejad publicly announced their imminent release.

Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad's defiance to Western governments' attempts to rein in Iran's nuclear program, Iran observers say the country's religious and military establishments have defeated the president in his yearslong effort to increase the stature of his office–a role that holds little formal political power in relation to Iran's ruling clergy.

"He comes to New York right now in probably the weakest position he's ever been in," said Mr. Sick. "I think that was absolutely intentional on the part of the old guard in Iran."

Mr. Ahmadinejad has sought to stack high-level offices with loyalists, repeatedly confronting rivals in the conservative establishment, said Mr. Sick.

In late 2010, the Iranian president angered the mullahs when he acted alone to fire Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki while the minister was on an official trip to Senegal.

In another such power play in April, Mr. Ahmadinejad attempted to fire Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, only to watch Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reject the minister's reportedly forced resignation.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was further humbled in May, when the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog of clerics and judges, intervened to prevent his attempts to "streamline" the cabinet of ministers by merging several strategic ministries.

Such maneuvers have run afoul of the true sources of power in the Islamic Republic: Mr. Khamenei, his religious establishment and the powerful Revolutionary Guard, a military unit devoted to protecting the principles of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

There is now talk that Mr. Ahmadinejad's chief aid, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, may soon face arrest—a fate already shared by several other Ahmadinejad loyalists, said Mr. Sick.

"This has been a tug of war between the president, who wants greater power and authority, and the existing regime, that likes things pretty much the way they are where the president is in a very weak position and not actually able to dominate the political scene," Mr. Sick said.

Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@dowjones.com

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