Dozens of Turkish hostages abducted by Islamist militants in northern Iraq were freed Saturday after three months in captivity . 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 . '' Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu described it as a late-night operation . `` At around 11:30 at night , this rescue effort reached its final stage , '' he told a crowd waving flags in Ankara . `` Be assured that for months we worked toward this . I thank those in our national intelligence agency who worked relentlessly and with great sacrifice . '' Mosul , a city of 1.6 million , collapsed swiftly when the militants attacked on June 10 . The heavily armed radicals overran police stations , freed more than 1,000 prisoners from the local jail and took over the international airport . American-trained Iraqi forces ran in the face of the onslaught , leaving behind uniforms , weapons and armored vehicles . ISIS , which calls itself the Islamic State , has declared that it has established a `` caliphate '' spanning large swaths of Iraq and Syria . Turkey has been wary of joining a U.S. coalition to battle the militants because of the hostages , according to Faysal Itani , a fellow at the Atlantic Council 's Center for the Middle East . READ MORE : How the `` Islamic State '' is governedREAD MORE : Who is English speaker in `` Flames of War ? `` READ MORE : Opinion : Why airstrikes wo n't beat ISIS .
This included the consul general of the Turkish Embassy in Istanbul . His wife and other citizens who were at the airport were also arrested . It 's unclear how they were freed , but Erdogan thanked Turkish government officials .