Dozens of Turkish hostages abducted by ISIS militants in Iraq were freed Saturday after three months in captivity.
ISIS militants attacked the Turkish consulate in Mosul in June and kidnapped 49 people including the Consul General. Turkish authorities said all of the hostages were freed and are now in their home country.
Turkish president Tayyib Erdogan thanked Turkish intelligence officials (MIT) in a statement on his website saying: “I thank … every single member of the national intelligence agency from the director to the field operatives. I congratulate them for their big success from the bottom of my heart.”
As reported by the Turkish media outlet Today’s Zaman, the Turkish consul saw some ISIL militants put a gun to his head.
“One of the other 45 Turkish hostages told the media that the consul-general had resisted ISIL demands to make a statement in front of a camera and added that the militants had even held a gun to the consul general’s head two or three times. “They wanted to film us and take photographs of us, but he said, ‘Shoot me, I will not let you degrade the honor of my country’,” the hostage told CNN Türk aboard a plane that took the hostages from Şanlıurfa to Ankara,” the Turkish media outlet reported.
Officials declined to give details of the rescue operation. All that is known is that the hostages were released at night in Tel Abyad in Syria after being transferred from the Syrian city of Raqqa.
Mosul, a city with a population of 1.6 million, collapsed when ISIS jihadists attacked in June. They overran police stations and freed more than 1000 prisoners from the local prison and took over the international airport.
Turkey has been warned by ISIS not to join the US coalition to fight ISIS because of the hostages.
