The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp steams in the Mediterranean Sea on June 30, 2024. (Nicholas Rodriguez/U.S. Navy)
Two U.S. Marines from an amphibious assault ship visiting a city in western Turkey are safe after they were assaulted Monday by a group of protesters who have attacked American military personnel in previous years.
Turkish authorities said they detained 15 members of the Youth Union of Turkey, also known as TGB, in the physical assault of the service members in the city of Izmir, the Associated Press reported Monday, citing the Turkish news agency Anadolu.
The attack happened at about 3:30 p.m., while the Marines were on liberty, Cmdr. Timothy Gorman, a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, said in a statement Monday.
“The 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,” Gorman said.
He added that the incident was being investigated by local police and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. No Marines were detained by authorities, and those involved were cooperating with authorities, he said.
Video posted by TGB to its X account on Monday shows several men holding another man while putting a bag on his head as a crowd yelled, “Yankee go home.” The video also shows a second man coming to the aid of the man held by the group.
“US soldiers, who carry the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands, cannot defile our country,” the group said in the post.
U.S. service members have not been part of the fighting in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023.
USS Wasp, which includes embarked elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, arrived in Izmir on Sunday as part of a scheduled port visit. The ship recently trained with the Turkish Navy.
The Wasp Amphibious Ready Group has been on duty in the Mediterranean since late June. The ARG is part of a naval buildup in the eastern Mediterranean as the Pentagon works to deter Iran from attacking Israel in retaliation for the assassination of a top Hamas official in Tehran in July.
Iran blames the killing on Israel, which has not acknowledged responsibility for the bombing that killed Ismail Haniyeh.
The U.S. Embassy in Ankara, in a post to its X account, confirmed that an assault of U.S. service members had occurred but did not provide additional details.
This isn’t the first time TGB has protested the U.S. by putting hoods over Americans’ heads.
In November 2021, the group attacked a Navy civilian embarked on USS Mount Whitney during a port call in Istanbul. That attack was preceded by a 2014 assault of a group of service members from the destroyer USS Ross who were dressed in civilian clothes.
The protesters threw red paint on at least one service member and put a plastic sack over his head, calling him a murderer, the pro-government Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported at the time.
The newspaper said putting hoods on U.S. service members is viewed as revenge for a 2003 incident in Iraq, in which U.S. military personnel detained and put hoods on Turkish soldiers operating as part of a special operations team.
U.S. officials had accused the soldiers of plotting to kill an American-backed Iraqi official, The New York Times reported at the time.
