In the video, which was quickly posted on YouTube, a group of roughly 20 men carrying a banner with Turkish founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's face on it pelt the sailors with garbage and paint before surrounding them and pulling bags over their heads.
"Because we define you as murderers, as killers, we want you to get out of our land," one of the assailants is heard saying. "Damn America!"
"Damn America!"
- One of 20 Turkish attackers assailing three Navy sailors
The sailors were not injured and were safely back aboard the guided missile destroyer the USS Ross, Capt. Greg Hicks, a front man at European Command, told Fox News. The ship had been docked in Turkey following a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
drill in the Black Sea, according to U.S. officials.
Hicks described the attackers as being part of a "Turkish nationalist group." A statement from the Navy said the attackers claimed to be from the Turkish Youth Union, which reports said characterized as a leftist, ultra-nationalist group that opposes Turkish membership in NATO. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara condemned the "appalling" attack, which took place in the historic Eminonu neighborhood of Istanbul.
| An Nahar provides a slightly different perspective on the events: |
A group of nationalist Turkish youths on Wednesday attacked three visiting U.S. sailors in Istanbul, trying to force sacks on their heads in an assault angrily condemned by the U.S. embassy.
Several dozen members of the nationalist youth group Turkiye Genclik Birligi (Turkish Youth Union/TGB) attacked the sailors in the Eminonu district on the Istanbul waterfront, a popular tourist hub.
They sought to force white sacks onto the heads of the sailors, who were in civilian dress, and chased them across the quayside, shouting "Yankee Go Home" and "Down with U.S. Imperialism".
The use of hoods was a reference to an incident from the 2003 Iraq war that outraged many in Turkey when U.S. forces in northern Iraq jugged
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
a group of Turkish soldiers, forced hoods on their heads and held them for three days.
The incident inflamed nationalist sentiment in Turkey and formed the basis of the smash-hit 2006 film about Turkish agents in Iraq "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq"..
"We want you to get lost and we are using our right to protest," the group said it told the sailors.
According to NTV television, 12 people were subsequently arrested.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the U.S. embassy in Ankara described the footage of the incident, which was posted on social networks, as "appalling".
"While we respect the right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression, we condemn today's attack in Istanbul," it said, adding it had "no doubt the vast majority of Turks would join us in rejecting an action that so disrespects Turkey's reputation for hospitality."
Turkey's refusal to cooperate with the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused a full-blown crisis in relations between Washington and Ankara.
But tensions has re-emerged again in recent months over Turkey's wariness of offering full support to the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Vice President
Joe Foreign Policy Whiz KidBiden
The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body...
is expected in Istanbul on November 21 for talks with Turkish leaders in a visit seen as crucial for smoothing out the current tensions.
The TGB claims to be staunchly loyal to the principles of modern Turkey's founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and also staunchly opposed the ruling Islamic-rooted party co-founded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him....