10 detained US sailors released by Iran
The US navy said the crew had returned safely and there were no indications they had been harmed.
The nine men and one woman had been held at an Iranian base on Farsi Island, in the Persian Gulf, after being detained on Tuesday.
The tiny outpost has been used as a base for Revolutionary Guard speedboats as far back as the 1980s.
The sailors departed the island at 8.43am GMT, aboard their own boats.
They were picked up by Navy aircraft and other sailors took control of their boats for the return to Bahrain, where the US 5th Fleet is based.
The Revolutionary Guard’s official website published images of the detained US sailors, showing them sitting on the floor of a room.
One was a woman with her hair covered by a brown cloth.
The pictures also showed what appeared to be their two boats.
“After determining that their entry into Iran’s territorial waters was not intentional, and their apology, the detained American sailors were released in international waters of the Persian Gulf,” a statement posted online by the Guard said.
General Ali Fadavi, the Navy chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was quoted by Iranian state TV as saying that an investigation had shown that the Americans entered Iranian territorial waters because of “mechanical problems in their navigation system”.
