Turkish workers kidnapped in Iraq are released

Turkey's state-run news agency says Turkish workers who were kidnapped in Baghdad have been released.

The Anadolu Agency says Wednesday the workers were freed in the city of Basra and were traveling to Baghdad. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said 16 workers were freed.

The men, employed by Turkish construction company Nurol Insaat, were snatched up from a construction site in Baghdad's Shiite-dominated Sadr City on Sept. 2. An Iraqi national was kidnapped along with the Turks.

The group that captured them had demanded that Turkey halt the flow of militants into Iraq, lift what it called a "siege" on Syrian Shiite cities and stop the passage of oil from Iraq's northern Kurdish region via Turkey in defiance of Baghdad.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility foe the abduction. Baghdad has seen a proliferation in recent years of well-armed criminal gangs that carry out contract killings, kidnappings and extortion.

Some elements of powerful Shia armed groups, which are seen as a critical deterrent against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have also been accused of kidnapping people for political or criminal purposes.

Iraqi security forces investigating the disappearance of the workers  raided the headquarters of a powerful Iranian-backed Shia militia.

Al Jazeera with The Associated Press