Tag: hostages

Categories
Iraq ISIS Syria

ISIS Releases 49 Hostages

Dozens of Turkish hostages abducted by Islamist militants in northern Iraq were freed Saturday after three months in captivity, CNN reports.

Militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria raided the Turkish consulate in June and seized 49 people, including Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz.

Others abducted included his family, children and other citizens who were at the consulate in Mosul at the time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Of the total, three were local employees and 46 were Turkish citizens. All were freed and the latter are now in their home country, Turkish authorities said.

It’s unclear how they were freed, but Erdogan thanked Turkish intelligence officials in a statement on his website.

“I thank … every single member of the national intelligence agency from the director to the field operatives,” he said. “I congratulate them for their big success from the bottom of my heart.”

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Categories
Politics Republican

Republicans To Offer Clean Debt Ceiling Hike Without Taking Hostages

Guess what? The midterms are coming.

Washington (AFP) – House Republicans said Tuesday they will introduce a measure this week to extend US borrowing authority with no conditions attached, marking a clear victory for President Barack Obama.

House Speaker John Boehner said he will now seek to pass a clean debt ceiling hike with help from most Democrats in the chamber, admitting it was “disappointing” that the party leadership did not have the votes to pass the measure with an attached provision reworking military pension benefits.

“This is a lost opportunity,” Boehner told reporters after a closed-door meeting with his caucus.

“We could have sat down and worked together in a bipartisan manner to find cuts and reforms that are greater than the increase in the debt limit.”

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned last week that the country would exhaust its borrowing authority by February 7, and that it could use extraordinary measures only until February 27 before the debt ceiling would need to rise or government would risk not being able to pay all its bills.

The White House has insisted for weeks that raising the debt ceiling was non-negotiable, and it did not want to see policy riders attached to the measure.

Categories
News

Hostages Shot and Killed in Louisiana Bank Heist

ST. JOSEPH, La. (AP) — A man who took hostages at a bank in rural Louisiana shot the two remaining hostages, killing one of them, before being shot and killed by police, authorities said.

During negotiations with law enforcement late Tuesday, the suspect — identified as 20-year-old Fuaed Abdo Ahmed — said he was going to kill the hostages, Louisiana State Police superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson said. State police then entered the building just before midnight Tuesday.

That’s when Ahmed shot the two hostages and then state police shot and killed him, Edmonson said. Edmonson said the hostages were shot in the upper body. He did not have any other information on the condition of the second hostage who was shot.

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