BAGHDAD, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- An Iraqi Shiite militant group on Wednesday released 16 Turkish construction workers abducted in Baghdad earlier this month.
The "Death Squads" group kidnapped 18 Turkish construction workers and engineers who were building a sports stadium on Sept. 2. The militants demanded Turkey lift a siege on several Shiite towns and villages in Syria, saying they were threatened by Turkish-supported rebel groups, The New York Times reported.
"Our 16 workers have just been received by our Baghdad ambassador," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Twitter. "I talked to some of them on the phone."
Two other hostages were released Sept. 16.
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The workers, employed by the Turkish company Nurol Holding, were sleeping in caravans at the construction site in the capital's northeastern Sadr City district when armed men in military uniforms arrived at about 6 a.m. in black SUVs and took them away. No significant violence was reported.
Nurol Holding said no previous threat was received. Davutoglu said preparations were underway to return the workers safely to Turkey.
A video of the kidnapped Turkish workers was released online Sunday, in which a captured Turkish man reads a statement saying they were treated well by their captors, RUDAW reported. The video purportedly showed the men receiving a Koran and an envelope of money from a "Death Squads" member.
In 2014, 46 Turkish citizens were captured in the city of Mosul, Iraq, by the Islamic State for about three months, but were released unharmed.
On Aug. 13, the Islamic State carried out a truck bombing that killed at least 70 people in Sadr City, a predominantly Shiite Muslim district of Baghdad.
The Islamic State took responsibility for the August incident via social media, stating it launched the attack targeting Shiite militia members. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh, is a Sunni militant Islam group that considers Shiites to be heretics.
