BAGHDAD -- Masked men in military uniforms kidnapped 18 Turkish employees of an Ankara-based construction company in Baghdad early Wednesday, bundling them into several sport utility vehicles and speeding away, Iraqi and Turkish officials said.
The 18 are employed by Nurol Insaat, a Turkish construction company contracted to build a 30,000-seat sports complex in the sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City. The kidnappers stormed the construction site, where the workers were sleeping in caravans, broke down doors and disarmed the guards before taking the workers away.
The Iraqi officials said an Iraqi was kidnapped along with the Turks.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said those kidnapped included 14 workers, three engineers and one accountant. He said the kidnappers specifically targeted Turks, picking them out from the rest and leaving behind workers from other countries.
There were no reports of violence.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus confirmed the kidnapping and said Ankara was in close contact with authorities in Iraq. "The Iraqi authorities for the time being do not have information on how the incident occurred or who captured them," he told reporters.
In Baghdad, Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said authorities are investigating the kidnapping and that a contingent of security forces has been tasked with tracking down the kidnappers.
Neither the identity nor the motives of the kidnappers were immediately known.
Turkey recently began launching airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and allowing U.S. warplanes to use bases in southeastern Turkey to strike the Sunni extremist group.
It launched a simultaneous air campaign in northern Iraq against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a Kurdish militant group.
Islamic State militants seized 49 diplomatic staff and family members from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul when they captured the northern Iraqi city in June 2014. The group held them for three months before releasing them unharmed. Turkish officials have suggested -- but never formally confirmed -- that the release was secured in exchange for Islamic State prisoners held in Turkey.
Turkey held back from contributing to the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State as it sought to free the 46 Turks and three Iraqi hostages.
Elsewhere Wednesday, roadside bombs ripped through busy commercial streets in different parts of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 29, according to police and hospital officials.
All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
In Anbar province, a spokesman for the local government, Eid Ayash, said about 200 inhabitants of a remote western town were released four days after Islamic State militants detained them for taking part in a demonstration against the killing of a resident.
Ayash said some of those released in the town of Rutbah bore signs of torture, but he gave no further details.
A Section on 09/03/2015