The group behind the incident said American troops have \u201cPalestinian blood\u201d on their hands<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of a nationalist youth organization have attacked two US Marines in the Turkish city of Izmir on Monday. The service members disembarked from the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, which arrived earlier that day during its deployment in the Mediterranean Sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A video of the altercation shows a group of men holding down a plain-clothed Marine, with one of the assailants putting a white sack over his head. The mob reportedly yelled \u201cYankee, go home!\u201d when attacking the servicemen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Izmir governor\u2019s office, security forces \u201cquickly intervened in the incident,\u201d detaining 15 suspects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe two Marines were aided by other Marines in the area and were subsequently taken to a local hospital for evaluation as a precaution but were not injured and have returned to the USS Wasp,\u201d said Commander Timothy Gorman, a spokesman for US Naval Forces Europe-Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US Embassy released a statement, saying that Americans \u201care now safe.\u201d The diplomats thanked the Turkish authorities for \u201ctheir rapid response and ongoing investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The assailants were members of the nationalist Youth Union of T\u00fcrkiye (TGB), which is affiliated with the small Patriotic Party. \u201cThe US soldiers who have the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot pollute our country,\u201d the party said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
TGB Secretary General Aylin Kum told Euronews that the group had previously put sacks over the heads of American service members in six different cities. She said that the attacks were \u201ca response\u201d to the 2003 incident in Iraq, when US troops briefly detained Turkish commandos and transported them with hoods over their heads. The incident caused widespread outrage in T\u00fcrkiye at the time and put a strain on the relations between the countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Ankara remains Washington\u2019s important ally in the region, the two NATO members have repeatedly clashed in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a vocal critic of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza and launched incursions against US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria. The US, meanwhile, unsuccessfully pressured Ankara to scrap its deal to buy the S-400 air defense missile systems from Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n