Turkey Obtains Release of Hostages Held in Iraq | The New York Times

Turkey secured the release of 49 hostages who had been held for more than three months in Iraq by the jihadists of the Islamic State on Saturday, marking a moment of joy for Turkey while raising questions about how it had managed to set them free.

Turkey said its intelligence agency had led a covert operation to bring home the hostages, who included diplomats and their families, but insisted that no military actions had been taken and that no ransoms were paid.

But Turkish officials provided no information on why or how the captives were transported from Mosul in Iraq to Raqqa in Syria before being brought to the Turkish border. Nor did they explain how they extracted such a large group, which included women and children, from Raqqa, the de facto capital of the world’s strongest jihadist group, without facing significant resistance.

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