Two of 18 kidnapped Turkish workers freed in Iraq

Kidnapping group says Turkey must order rebel forces to stop besieging four Shia villages in northern Syria

BASRA, IRAQ: Two of 18 Turkish workers kidnapped by gunmen in Baghdad this month have been freed in the southern province of Basra, Turkish and Iraqi officials said on Wednesday.

The men were among 18 employees of major Turkish construction firm Nurol Insaat kidnapped on September 2 in the Sadr City area of north Baghdad, where they were working on a football stadium project.

The kidnapping was claimed by an unknown militant group that presented itself as Shia, and top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani has demanded that they be released.

Read: Turkey confirms 18 construction workers kidnapped in Baghdad

The Turkish ambassador to Iraq, Faruk Kaymakci, said that two workers had been released and were found near a Turkish company's premises in Basra.

"They are in good health," he told AFP. "They said the other 16 were also in good health as of yesterday (Tuesday)."

The Basra police issued a statement saying that the two men were found late on Tuesday, while the Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson also confirmed their release.

"Two of our 18 fellow citizen abducted in Baghdad have been released. The two released workers are Necdet Yilmaz and Ercan Ozpilavci," spokesperson Tanju Bilgic told the Dogan news agency.

The militant group that claimed the kidnappings, which identified itself as Furaq al Mawt, or "Death Squads," issued a list of demands it said Ankara must fulfil for them to be freed.

The group said Turkey must order rebel forces to stop besieging four Shia villages in northern Syria, stop militants from travelling from Turkey to Iraq, and cut the flow of "stolen oil from Kurdistan through Turkish territory."

Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region is independently exporting oil via Turkey in a move the federal government considers illegal -- a point of contention between Baghdad and Ankara.

"If (President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan and his party do not respond, we will crush Turkish interests and their agents in Iraq by the most violent means," the group said in the video.

Sistani, the top Shia cleric in Iraq, who is revered by millions, said the kidnapped Turks must be freed.

"We demand the release of the kidnapped men and the end of such practices, which harm the image of Islam" in general and Shias in particular, Sistani's office said in a statement.

Read: Militants claim kidnapping of 18 Turks in Baghdad: video

Dozens of Turks have been kidnapped but later released in Iraq in the past 18 months by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, which overran large parts of the country last year.

But Sadr City, where the 18 Turks were kidnapped, is a stronghold of Shia paramilitary forces opposed to IS.

A soldier was killed last week when security forces clashed with the Shia Ketaeb Hezbollah militia while searching for a person allegedly involved in the kidnappings.

The security command responsible for the capital said there had been intelligence that "one of the members of the gang that carried out the kidnapping" was on Baghdad's Palestine Street.

It did not identify the gunmen, but al Etejah television, which is affiliated with Ketaeb Hezbollah, said one of the group's facilities had been attacked by the Baghdad Operations Command on that street.

Baghdad turned to mostly Shia volunteer forces for support as IS advanced towards the capital in June 2014. Those groups have played a key role in halting and then reversing the terrorists' gains.

In doing so, the government empowered Shia militias, some with chequered human rights records, and spurred the creation of new ones, allowing them to act with near-impunity despite the fact they officially fall under government command.