Questions remained unanswered toward Turkey’s terror captives

On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the release of 46 Turks and 3 Iraqis captured in Mosul more than three months ago as a “pre-planned rescue operation” by Turkey’s national intelligence agency. The following day, he appeared to change tack, suggesting that a deal had been struck with the militants as a result “political and diplomatic negotiations.”

The man who presided over the operation, Turkey’s intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, has been particularly tight-lipped about the operation’s details. The captives’ release was the result of “patient, detailed work, intelligence and fortitude,” Fidan said on Saturday. “Nothing else can be said.”

The hostages appeared alongside Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and other officials on the tarmac of Ankara airport on Saturday morning after a day-long journey spanning three countries.

After leaving Mosul in Iraq on Friday morning the hostages are thought to have travelled to Raqqa, Isis’s key stronghold in Syria, before being moved to the Syrian town of Tal Abyad, near the border with Turkey. After crossing into the Turkish town of Akcakale, they were driven by bus to Urfa from where they boarded a flight to Ankara.

Turkish officials have yet to divulge who ferried the hostages from Mosul through Isis-held territory in Syria to Turkey, a trip of 500km, and how.

They have stressed, however, that no clashes took place during the operation, and ruled out the involvement of other national intelligence services.

According to other officials, Sunni tribes in and around Mosul played a significant role in supporting the rescue operation, serving as intermediaries between the Turks and Isis.
Erdogan denied that Turkey had paid a ransom. “If we’re talking in terms of a material exchange, that is totally out of the question,” he said. “This is a diplomatic and political victory.”

What makes little sense, says Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, “is why the Islamic State would hand over its leverage to Turkey without getting anything tangible in return.”  Erdogan’s remarks on Sunday, he said, suggest they did receive something. “The million dollar question is what.” At least five different attempts to bring back the hostages had been made before this weekend, Turkish officials said, but were abandoned because of the continuing clashes in Iraq and Syria.

In a TV interview, Ozturk Yilmaz, the Turkish consul general, said that he and other hostages had been made to watch videos of the beheadings of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Isis. Another captive, Dervis Ozturk, said the militants had repeatedly tried to force Yilmaz, at gunpoint, to make a taped statement. He refused.

Yilmaz also divulged that he had managed to keep a cellular phone by his side and maintain contact with Ankara on a regular basis.

Citing official sources, Turkish newspapers said the hostages had been held in eight different locations in Mosul, but that unmanned aerial drones and field agents had been able to track their movements throughout.

Speculation, meanwhile, grew, as to whether the end of the hostage crisis, which Ankara cited as the key factor behind its reluctance to take part in military operations against Isis, would lead Turkey to adopt a more aggressive posture.

Erdogan intimated this may be the case. Ankara’s attitude towards the US-led coalition of ten Arab States pledged to confront Isis “was for yesterday,” he said. “What happens in the period that follows is a different topic…. We need to decide what kind of attitude to take.”