Turkey secures release of 49 hostages seized by Islamic State in northern Iraq
Group of 49 were seized from consulate in Mosul three months ago
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 20 September, 2014, 4:16pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 21 September, 2014, 6:15am
Reuters in Ankara
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, centre, stands with freed hostages at the airport in Ankara, Turkey, yesterday. Photo: AP
Turkish intelligence agents brought 49 hostages seized by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq back to Turkey yesterday after more than three months in captivity, in what President Recep 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.
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. "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".
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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 under way to secure their release and that the hostages were in good health but would not elaborate.
Security sources said 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.
Without citing its sources, it said MIT had tracked the hostages as they were moved to eight different locations during their 101 days in captivity.
Their capture had left Turkey, a member of the Nato military alliance and a key US ally, hamstrung in its response to the Sunni insurgents, who have carved out a self-proclaimed caliphate in parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq.
The rapid and brutal advance of Islamic State, bent on establishing a hub of jihadism in the centre of the Arab world and on Turkey's southern fringe, has alarmed Ankara and its Western allies, forcing them to step up intelligence sharing and tighten security cooperation.
