Turkish intelligence warned officials in all 81 provinces about some 22 bomb-laden Islamic State vehicles in the country as well as 30 possible suicide bombers. Police are monitoring IS groups in Ankara and Konya, as well as IS cells in Hatay, Adana, Gaziantep, Kilis, Şanlıurfa, İstanbul, and Mersin. A deputy prime minister said 60,000 Syrian Kurds have crossed into Turkey in the last 24 hours, fleeing the IS advance in northern Syria. Prime Minister Erdogan said 49 Turkish consular personnel held captive by the IS in Mosul, Iraq since June 11 were freed in an operation by Turkish intelligence. The IS reportedly insisted that the hostages be given to Turkey at the border with Syria, not in the contested Kurdish region, where IS is clashing with Kurdish forces. Turkey’s consul general for Mosul claimed that some US airstrikes hit very close to the hostages’ location, but that “without the US bombing, perhaps we wouldn’t be able to survive.”
