The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and its local Sunni militia allies captured the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on June 10 when the much larger Iraqi military forces collapsed following several days of combat. The crumbling of the Iraqi army and police forces opened a security vacuum in Iraq's second-largest city, permitting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and its allies to move into the city and plunder arms depots, petroleum storage facilities and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold from banks and businesses.
The security vacuum also left the Turkish Consulate in Mosul in a very precarious position: For some unknown reason, the consulate had chosen not to reduce or evacuate its staff. When a large group of heavily armed militiamen surrounded the consulate on June 11, Turkish Consul Ozturk Yilmaz and his security staff faced the difficult decision of whether to fight to the death against the much larger force or to surrender and leave their fates in the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and its local allies. Yilmaz chose surrender. As of this writing, the 49 Turkish diplomats and their family members remain alive but in captivity. These developments present some important lessons for both diplomatic security practitioners and corporate security managers.
Diplomatic Security
International law, such as the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, establishes that security for foreign consulates is the responsibility of the host country. This is generally not a problem in a developed, stable country. There is, for example, little doubt that the British government would take the steps needed to ensure that the Turkish and American embassies in London remained safe. The problems with the responsibilities outlined in the Vienna Convention occur when a diplomatic facility is located in a country that is either unable or unwilling to provide adequate security.
History has shown that consulates and embassies cannot rely solely on the host country for protection. This is due to the criminal and militant threats and the rampant corruption that exists in many countries, and because host countries and third-country intelligence agencies often target consulates for intelligence operations. In other situations, the host country is hostile to the foreign mission and might permit (or even facilitate) mobs or militants to take action against it. Because of this, countries have found it necessary to provide their own security for consular and diplomatic personnel and facilities.
The most robust diplomatic security programs are designed to protect against intelligence operations and criminal or terrorist attacks. But even buildings with good perimeter security and adequate physical security to protect against bombings and prevent forced entry by a surprise terrorist attack are simply not designed to handle a prolonged assault by a mob, as seen in the 1979 ransacking of American embassies in Tehran and Islamabad. Such security measures are likewise unable to withstand an extended assault by a militant group armed with heavy weapons.
In the case of the Turkish Consulate in Mosul, militants armed with heavy weapons systems mounted on the backs of pickup trucks, often referred to as technicals, surrounded the building. The weapons systems normally mounted on these vehicles include heavy machine guns, 23 mm anti-aircraft cannons (which can be used against buildings in a direct fire mode) and recoilless rifles such as the Russian SPG-9 and the U.S. M40. Recoilless rifles have proved very effective in urban combat in both Libya and Syria, and their armor-piercing, high explosive shells can significantly damage even a well-constructed building. In addition to their technicals, the Iraqi militants in Mosul were also armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, tanks and artillery pieces seized from Iraqi military units that abandoned their weapons as they fled the city.
Don't Be There
Normally, when confronted by a potential threat great enough to overcome the security measures at a consular or diplomatic facility, the government sending the personnel to that particular mission will reduce the size of the staff at the facility. Not only is it prudent to leave fewer personnel exposed to the possible threat, but a smaller staff is also easier to evacuate if it becomes necessary. As a threat moves closer toward realization, the decision can be made to close the mission and withdraw the staff from harm's way.
However, there are often political reasons governments hesitate to reduce their staff or close a facility. In such situations, politically motivated decisions can lead to very bad situations at these posts. At other times, like the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the crisis appears by surprise and there is simply not enough time to evacuate diplomatic staff. In some instances, such as the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1975 and the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1990, helicopters can be dispatched to evacuate personnel caught by surprise who cannot evacuate by land.
The Turkish Consulate in Mosul did not reduce the number of staff members assigned to the mission or their family members living in the city in the days leading up to the June 11 assault on their facility despite the attacks of Sunni militants against the military and police forces guarding the city. It is not clear if this was done for political purposes, if the militants had cut off all the escape routes from the city, or if the Turks simply did not foresee a risk to their facility because of the size of the Iraqi military and police forces protecting Mosul compared to their attackers. But no matter why they decided not to draw down or evacuate, they faced an acute crisis when they ended up with 49 people trapped in the consulate building, surrounded by heavily armed Iraqi militants.
It is also unclear why the Turks decided to mass their personnel inside the consulate building rather than have them maintain a low profile and shelter in place at their homes or apartments, where they would be less conspicuous. Mosul has more than a million people, so it would be difficult for the relatively small number of militants to conduct a house-by-house search of the whole city.
Even though Mosul is only a little more than 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) from the Turkish border, it appears that the Turkish military either did not have the resources mobilized to rapidly extract their personnel or had not conducted the detailed planning required for such a contingency operation. All American consulates and embassies are required to have evacuation plans and to periodically test and update their plans. Plans need to be updated because it can be a very bad thing to find out in the middle of an evacuation that the vacant field you were planning to use as a helicopter landing zone and extraction point is now the site of a recently constructed high-rise.
Like foreign ministries, corporate security managers must also make hard decisions regarding threats to their personnel. Rather than politics, it is normally economics that causes businesses to hesitate to evacuate their personnel from a danger zone. Not only are evacuations expensive, but they also usually mean missed business opportunities. In some circumstances, corporate security managers can piggyback onto the emergency planning of their home country's consulate or embassy. But that is never a sure thing, and like diplomatic security practitioners, corporate security managers also need to create and maintain their own evacuation plans in the event their government can't help them. Again, it is easier to evacuate a small number of people, so it is often prudent to draw down (even if only temporarily) in the face of a potential threat.
Trapped in the Turkish Consulate in Mosul with a large number of staff and their families, surrounded by a determined and heavily armed opponent with a long track record of violence against civilians — and with no apparent possibility of Turkish military assistance — Yilmaz had little choice but attempt to negotiate a surrender that would keep his people alive.
Unlike American or European diplomats, whom the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant would have considered infidels and likely executed in much the same way that it executed large numbers of captured Shiite security force members, the Turks had the advantage of being Sunni Muslims. Statements by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant noted that the group will not harm its Sunni brethren. Thus far, the decision to surrender rather than fight to the death appears to have been a prudent one, and the hope remains that the Turkish government will be able to pay a ransom to gain the release of Yilmaz and his staff. If that occurs, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant will collect yet another financial windfall from its operations in Mosul.
