Turkey doing a Pakistan.

[Kaalapani]

http://rt.com/news/165340-turkish-consulate-mosul-qaeda/

ihadist insurgents have kidnapped 49 people in the Turkish consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and 31 Turkish truck drivers in separate attacks, Ankara said. Al-Qaeda offshoot ISIS has been advancing on the cities north of Baghdad.

Militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS / ISIL) have captured 49 Turkish citizens at the Mosul consulate, Turkey's Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday. As many as 31 Turkish drivers have also been taken hostage by the militants in separate incidents and are being held at a power station in Mosul, the ministry added.

The Turkish Consul-General in Mosul, Ozturk Yilmaz, several members of Turkey's special forces and three children were among those taken hostage by the ISIS militants, Reuters reported citing sources in the Turkish prime minister's office.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier held an emergency meeting on the situation, Hurriyet reported.

This is huge -> MT @JMSardo #Iraq: Turkish consul in Mosul Öztürk Yılmaz taken hostage w/ 45 workers by ISIS fighters pic.twitter.com/e7eXPExBjp

— Yannis Koutsomitis (@YanniKouts) June 11, 2014

According to Turkish media, the captors have been holding diplomats in militant headquarters and unharmed.

An Islamist Twitter account, @Dawla_NewsMedia, which has been tweeting photos and pro-ISIS reports from the scene, claimed that the Turkish diplomats have been moved "to an unknown location." The account has since been blocked by Twitter.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reportedly cut short his visit to the US and flew back to Ankara in connection with the Mosul hostage-taking. Davutoglu was due to deliver a speech at a UN counter-terrorism meeting in New York.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry meanwhile said it was verifying the information amid conflicting reports.

The radical Sunni militants have already taken hostage at least 32 Turkish nationals – truck drivers – in the area since Tuesday, according to Hurriyet.

Map from @AFP marking areas of #Iraq controlled by ISIS pic.twitter.com/fAB4a5SmXk

— Phoebe Greenwood (@pagreenwood) June 11, 2014

Meanwhile, Reuters sources suggested Ankara has been in "direct contact" with the militants over the situation.

"Certain militant groups in Mosul have been directly contacted to ensure the safety of diplomatic staff," a Turkish government source told the agency.

The Turkish government has earlier been accused of assisting jihadist groups fighting in Syria against Syrian President Bashar Assad's government. Damascus complained to the UN in March that Turkey was providing cover to rebels crossing the border from Turkish territory, which allegedly included several Al-Qaeda affiliates.
ISIS militants spread fighting to other northern cities

Some 225km (140 miles) south of Mosul, the ISIS militants have seized the city of Tikrit, Iraqi security officials told AP on condition of anonymity. According to the report, the provincial governor has gone missing from the city.

Tikrit, just 150 kilometers (95 miles) northwest of Baghdad, was the hometown of President Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown in the US-led military operation.

AFP quoted Tikrit police as saying that the militants controlling the city freed some 300 prisoners there.

"All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militants," an Iraqi police colonel told AFP.

Iraqi city of #Tikrit falls to Islamist militants Middle East - Iraqi city of Tikrit falls to Islamist militants - France 24 #Iraqpic.twitter.com/nWNGPDrKKN via @FRANCE24#news

— Musica y Justicia (@MusicayJusticia) June 11, 2014

Meanwhile in the city of Samarra, located further south of Tikrit on the east bank of the Tigris River, clashes reportedly broke out between Iraqi forces and militants arriving in trucks with machine guns, according to AFP. Samarra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to several holy sites for Shia Muslims.

Earlier, ISIS boasted the capture of Iraq's biggest oil refinery north of the city of Baiji, claiming it had "seized it without a shot." The oil refinery, located less than 180km (110 miles) from Mosul was one of the strategic objects secured by the US-led forces in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and thoroughly searched for "weapons of mass destruction." No chemical agents were ever found there.

Google map

Google map

On Monday night, fighters from Al-Qaeda splinter group ISIS stormed provincial government headquarters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns.

"The city of Mosul is outside the control of the state and at the mercy of the militants," an Interior Ministry official told AFP on Monday. It is now the second city to fall under control of Islamist fighters since the beginning of this year. In January militants seized the city of Fallujah, displacing over 70,000 people.

Eyewitness accounts describe the scenes of chaos on the streets of Iraq's second-largest city as thousands of people fled for their lives. A number of reports say that militants are freeing detainees from police stations, while AL RAI Chief International Correspondent Elijah J Magnier tweeted that the ISIS had freed over 2,000 inmates from a "counter terrorism prison."

Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have fled Mosul and the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh, which the jihadists have largely taken under control. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) placed the number of refugees at 500,000.

Those fleeing the region included demoralized Iraqi troops, who chaotically left their positions, dropping uniforms, weapons, munitions and military hardware.


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Pakistan should be an example of what not to do but Turkey is fallowing them.

 

[CNC]

So what exactly is Turkey doing that they shouldn't be doing? Their Foreign Minister turned around and headed back to Ankara for a meeting with other high ranking officials.
Source: Turkey holds emergency meeting after attack on consulate in Iraq Anadolu Agency
Thoughts and prayers to anybody involved in this current situation in Iraq. hopefully we will see diplomatic resolution, but if not, I'd like to see the NATO power of Turkey in action!

 

[Kaalapani]

So what exactly is Turkey doing that they shouldn't be doing? Their Foreign Minister turned around and headed back to Ankara for a meeting with other high ranking officials.
Source: Turkey holds emergency meeting after attack on consulate in Iraq Anadolu Agency
Thoughts and prayers to anybody involved in this current situation in Iraq. hopefully we will see diplomatic resolution, but if not, I'd like to see the NATO power of Turkey in action!

They are trying good terrorist bad terrorist concept which backfired.

 

[rock127]

Sunnis extremist groups have taken over Mosul the second biggest city of Iraq.Just saw in news and they are saying this is serious and can destabilize the whole region.


Iraq's Second Largest City Mosul Falls to Extremists

Soldiers in Mosul threw down their guns and stripped off their uniforms as Sunni insurgents approached and raised their black flags on Tuesday, allowing the city to fall after just four days of fighting. Terrified residents were streaming out of the city.The fall of Iraq's second largest city to Islamist extremists Tuesday sends an alarming message about the deterioration of a country where the U.S. spent eight years, 4,500 lives and $1.7 trillion. Mosul, a city of 1.8 million located in the far north of the country, long cultivated a reputation as a military town. But Iraqi soldiers threw down their guns and stripped off their uniforms as the insurgents approached on Tuesday, according to officials stunned by the collapse of its defenses.

"When the battle got tough in the city of Mosul, the troops dropped their weapons and abandoned their posts, making it an easy prey for the terrorists," Osama Nuajaifi, the speaker of Iraq's parliament who hails from Mosul, said during a news conference in Baghdad. "Everything is fallen. It's a crisis. Having these terrorist groups control a city in the heart of Iraq threatens not only Iraq but the entire region."

The fall of Mosul after only four days of fighting speaks volumes about both the state of Iraqi forces and the depth of the sectarian division at the bleeding heart of the nation's ongoing crisis: the population of Mosul is mostly Sunni, and the central government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is widely criticized as favoring the country's Shi'ite majority. Al-Maliki is likely to remain in office after the April 30 elections left him with the largest share of votes and negotiating chiefly with other Shi'ite parties to form a new governing coalition.

The insurgents — who raised black flags over parts of the city on Tuesday — are Sunni extremists known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a group al-Qaeda disowned as too extreme.

"Iraq is undergoing a difficult stage," al-Maliki said at a televised news conference, after asking parliament to declare a state of emergency. The Premier confirmed that militants controlled much of Mosul, and that soldiers had deserted their posts. News reports said militants had overrun the airport, gaining access to military helicopters, and had cranes moving blast walls — erected as protection against terrorist car bombs — to reinforce their positions and block roads against a counterattack. Police stations had been overrun and set afire, and the doors of at least one jail flung open: the Associated Press quoted residents who saw prisoners running down the street still wearing their yellow jump suits.

Terrified residents were streaming out of the city — the International Organization for Migration reports 500,000 people have left their homes since Saturday — and there were reports that water and electricity were cut off. On its Twitter account, ISIS gloated about seizing arms and vehicles abandoned by the city's supposed defenders. Elsewhere in the country, its fighters have been spotted driving humvees captured from government forces in previous encounters.

The situation was dire in more ways than one. Besides its symbolic importance as Iraq's second largest city — and the historic home of the country's oil industry — Mosul has crucial strategic significance. It sits near both Turkey and the largely autonomous Kurdish zone of northern Iraq, but most important, it functions as Iraq's most prominent doorway to Syria, where ISIS emerged as one of the main rebel forces arrayed against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Led by an Iraqi, ISIS has ranged freely across an international border that separates the countries far more on maps than in reality. The conflicts raging in both Syria and Iraq are grounded in sectarian identities — Sunni vs. Shi'ite — that have in crucial ways overridden national identities. The terms of the ancient conflict steepen the challenge Baghdad faces in subduing the insurrection that currently has divided Iraq between east and west. ISIS and its Sunni allies control much of Anbar province, including portions of Ramadi and much of Fallujah, which lay due west of the capital. Mosul, though also home to Shi'ite and Kurdish populations, remained restive for most of the U.S. occupation, and was a battleground between al-Maliki's troops and forces associated with al-Qaeda as recently as 2008, when the Premier promised a "decisive" battle for the city.

On Tuesday, al-Maliki was preparing again. Despite warnings from analysts that the insurrection was at heart a political problem that might only be worsened by a heavy-handed military response, al-Maliki announced his government had created a Crisis Unit and was preparing a counteroffensive that, according to one report, would include civilian volunteers armed by his government. Nuajaifi, the parliament speaker, warned, "They will reach every corner of Iraq if it doesn't stop."