WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department says two American journalists who were detained in Syria have been released.

The journalists went missing during a vacation in Lebanon were arrested Thursday in Syria after they crossed the Lebanese-Syrian border.

The Syrian foreign ministry says Holli Chmela and Taylor Luck were detained after they crossed into the country with the help of smugglers.

Chmela and Luck had been working for the Jordan Times.

Luck is a 23-year-old from Oak Park (Illinois). He graduated last year from Beloit College in Wisconsin. School officials say he was an international relations major who also studied Arabic and spent a semester in Jordan.