On Wednesday morning the Turkey government confirmed that masked men dressed in military and police uniform kidnapped 18 Turkish workers in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad on Sept 2.

According to the sources, the 18 Turkish workers were employed in the construction of sports stadium in northeast Baghdad by a Turkish company Nurol firm on contract basis.

“People dressed in military uniforms broke down the door at 3 am (0000 GMT) and abducted all these people,” says Nurol chief executive Ugur Dogan.

“Eighteen Turkish citizens working for a construction company in Baghdad have been kidnapped,” Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters. “We are in close contact with the Iraqi (interior) ministry and hope the incident will end positively.”

Neither the identity nor the motives of the kidnappers were immediately known.There were no reports of violence.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç has stated that the 18 Turkish employees, includes 14 workers, 3 engineers and one accountant, were specifically chosen by the perpetrators.

18 Construction Workers Were Kidnapped in Turkey

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus confirmed the kidnapping and said Ankara was in close contact with authorities in Iraq. “The Iraqi authorities for the time being do not have information on how the incident occurred or who captured them.”

“It’s still a very fresh development. We don’t have detailed information,” said Kurtulmuş.

“Iraqi officials do not know how the incident happened and who perpetrated it,” he added.

Turkey recently started launching air strikes against the extremist Islamic State group in northern Iraq and allowing US warplanes to use bases in southeastern Turkey to strike against the extremist group.

According to the reports of the two police sources said the gunmen had arrived in a convoy of black sports utility vehicles. Man denied reports that up to three Iraqis had also been abducted, and put the number of people kidnapped at 16.

A spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry said Turkish nationals had been specifically picked out by the attackers, without giving further details.