Sunday Times 2
Turkey secures release of 49 hostages seized in northern Iraq
View(s):SANLIURFA Turkey (Reuters) – Turkish intelligence agents brought 49 hostages seized by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq back to Turkey today after more than three months in captivity, in what President Tayyip Erdogan described as a covert rescue operation.
The hostages, including Turkey’s consul-general, diplomats’ children and special forces soldiers, were brought to the southern Turkish city of Sanliurfa in the early hours of the morning. Police formed a cordon outside the airport as they arrived in buses with curtains drawn, a Reuters witness said.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (Reuters)
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who cut short an official visit to Azerbaijan to travel to Sanliurfa, hugged the freed hostages before boarding a plane with them to the capital Ankara.
“I thank the prime minister and his colleagues for the pre-planned, carefully calculated and secretly-conducted operation throughout the night,” Erdogan said in a statement.
“MIT (the Turkish intelligence agency) has followed the situation very sensitively and patiently since the beginning and, as a result, conducted a successful rescue operation.”
Speaking to reporters earlier in Azerbaijan, Davutoglu declined to give details on the circumstances of the release, saying only it was carried out “through MIT’s own methods”.
The group was seized from the Turkish consulate in Mosul on June 11 during a lightning advance by Islamic State insurgents. Turkish officials had repeatedly said efforts were underway to secure their release and that the hostages were in good health but had declined to comment further.
Security sources told Reuters they were released at the town of Tel Abyad on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey after travelling from the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, Islamic State’s stronghold.
Independent broadcaster NTV said Turkey did not pay a ransom, no other country was involved, and there were no clashes with Islamic State militants during the operation to release them.