Doug Stanglin

USA TODAY





Three senior Afghan military officers who failed to return to a U.S. training base in Cape Cod, Mass., were taken into custody Monday while trying to cross into Canada, according to a spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police.

State police spokesman David Procopio said federal authorities were interviewing the officers at Rainbow Bridge checkpoint in Niagara Falls, N.Y., but provided no further details.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection was notified by the Canadian Border Services Agency when the men were taken into custody, Shelbe Benson-Fuller, regional press officer for the agency, told CNN.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said earlier that the three officers did not appear to pose a threat to the public and may have been trying to defect.

The three soldiers from the Afghan National Army arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 11 to take part in a two-week training exercise at Camp Edwards, a National Guard training facility at Joint Base Cape Cod.

They were last spotted Saturday at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis, about 20 miles from the base.

The Cape Cod Times, quoting an unidentified spokesman for the U.S. Central Command that is sponsoring the training exercises, reported Monday that the men were on an off-base excursion "to introduce them to cultural aspects of American life" when they failed to return to base Saturday night.

The officers, who were identified as Maj. Jan Mohammad Arash, Capt. Mohammad Nasir Askarzada and Capt. Noorullah Aminy, are among 200 soldiers from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia taking part in the tactical exercises at Camp Edwards. All three carried Afghan passports and valid U.S. visas, according to military officials.

The U.S. Central Command spokesman told the Cape CodTimes that the three — like all participants in the field exercises — did not have access to weapons.

Massachusetts National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. James Sahady told Boston.com that not all 200 foreign participants are locked down on the base. The officers, who are cleared by the State Department to participate in the program, are permitted to go to dinner or other activities off-base without restrictions.

The camp is a 15,000-acre area inside Joint Base Cape Cod that includes a replica of a forward-operating base used by troops in places such as Afghanistan, according to the JBCC website.

Sahady said 15 officers and senior enlisted personnel from Afghanistan were taking part in the annual training program, which has been held since 2004. The two-week exercise is scheduled to end Wednesday.

Contributing: Associated Press