Turkish troops have killed 18 members of the ISIS group after the jehadis launched an attack on a camp used to train Iraqi fighters outside the Iraqi city of Mosul, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. Turkish forces have been using the Bashiqa camp, just outside Mosul, to train local Iraqi fighters to retake the city from ISIS.
“Eighteen members of the Daesh terror organisation who wanted to infiltrate Bashiqa were neutralised,” Erdogan said in televised comments after Friday prayers in Istanbul, using another name for the IS group. “None of our soldiers were wounded,” he added.
It was not immediately clear what nature of attack the jihadists had launched but Erdogan said that the Turkish forces were ready to repel any kind of assault. “Our armed forces there, our officers providing the training, are prepared for any kind of attacks or raids, or anything that happens,” said Erdogan.
The presence of the Turkish troops, while welcomed by the local authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan, has become a bone of contention with the central Iraqi government which angrily called for the Turkish troops to leave. Turkey in December withdrew some of the troops after also coming under US pressure. But it is unclear how many remain at the camp.