KURDS PROTEST U.S. ARREST OF IRANIAN

"U.S. troops arrested an Iranian man... and accused him of helping to smuggle a deadly type of roadside bomb into Iraq... The U.S.... allege that he is an officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp's elite Quds force... (and) had trained foreign fighters in Iraq and provided them with roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs..."

"But the Kurdistan Regional Government in a statement called the arrest "illegitimate," said the man was a member of a trade delegation that had been invited to Sulaimaniyah by the local government and demanded that he be released... The Kurdish Regional Government said the man was Aghai Farhadi, a member of an economic and commercial delegation from the Iranian governorate of Karmanshah, which borders Iraq's Sulaimaniyah and Diyala provinces. Hassan Baqi, the head of the Sulaimaniyah chamber of commerce, said Farhadi had been in Sulaimaniyah for a week for discussions on opening a border crossing near Panjween,68 miles east of Sulaimaniyah, and other trade-related issues..."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/19856.html