Turkish security forces killed a lone hijacker, believed to be a Kurdish militant, in a pre-dawn operation yesterday to rescue more than 20 passengers held hostage for 12 hours on a ferry in northwest Turkey.
The decision was taken to carry out a joint security forces operation at 5:35am, Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu told reporters.
“Shortly after the start of the operation, the vessel was boarded and the assailant was killed,” Mutlu said. “It was clear that the assailant was a terror group member.”
Photo: Reuters
He was between 28 and 30 years old and was carrying a device with a button and cables that bomb disposal experts were analyzing, Mutlu said.
Ambulances and police teams had been waiting on the nearby shore and Reuters Television reporters saw some passengers, apparently uninjured, being taken to hospital at the nearby town of Silivri. Others, according to news channels, were taken to a police station.
Earlier reports said up to five suspected Kurdish militants armed with explosives carried out the hijacking on the high-speed Kartepe ferry.
“There is information that they are from a wing of the terror organization,” Yildirim said, referring to the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting for Kurdish autonomy in the southeast of the country.
On Friday night, Turkish commandos on coastguard vessels tracked the boat in the Sea of Marmara before it ran low on fuel and had to anchor a couple of kilometers off the coast about 50km west of Istanbul.
The ferry had been on a short run between the towns of Izmit and Karamursel. It had 18 passengers on board, including five women and six crew, though it had capacity for up to 400 people.
Friends and relatives had waited overnight for news at the two ports, while fuel tankers had headed for the area where the vessel was anchored, according to media reports.
Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim had told reporters in the capital, Ankara, that the hijacker had not made any concrete demands and had only sought fuel, food and drink.
Shortly before 5am a flurry of activity was evident on the ferry’s main deck. Hazy television pictures showed figures moving in the aisle between rows of empty seats. A few people were apparently wearing life jackets.
Security forces had been prepared for the possibility that the hijackers may want to take the vessel to Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara, where PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan has been jailed since 1999, CNN Turk reported.
Before a national election in June, Ocalan warned of a “big war” unless the state entered serious negotiations with him, and following a series of militant attacks, Turkey launched multiple air strikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq, while police detained scores of suspected militants.
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