Turkey has managed to retrieve 49 of its own citizens who were being held hostage by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization, the Anadolu Agency reported, allegedly without paying any ransom.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the group, which included diplomats, soldiers, officers and their families, returned at 5 am. They were brought to a complex in the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa where they were found to be in good health.
On his official Twitter account, Davutoglu thanked the families of the former hostages “from the bottom of my heart” and praised the rescuers, “in particular [the] great effort of MIT Under-secretary Hakan Fidan” and the rest of the MIT Intelligence organization.
The hostages were abducted from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul in mid-June and were held in Iraq for 101 days before being freed Saturday morning. They were moved eight times, intelligence sources said, before they were transferred first to Syria in a special arrangement made with the Iraqis and then finally crossed the border into Turkey.
According to NTV news, there were no clashes and the operation was carried out via “native” intelligence operatives, not military. No ransom was paid, NTV reported, and no foreign intelligence operatives were involved.