Türkiye’s counterterrorism efforts targeting the PKK continue ceaselessly as the terrorist group faces a crackdown both within the country and in Iraq and Syria where it has strongholds. Details of separate operations made public on Wednesday demonstrate Ankara’s resolve to wipe out the presence of the group in the region, from Iraq to Syria.

The Ministry of National Defense announced airstrikes carried out by the army between Oct.9 and Oct.11 eliminated nine terrorists in Gara and five others in the Hakurk region of northern Iraq. "We are determined to drain the terrorism at its source," the ministry said in a social media post on Wednesday.

In its 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children, infants and the elderly.

Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil, northern Iraq. It’s not designated a terrorist organization in Iraq but is banned from launching operations against Türkiye from Iraqi territory.

Ankara maintains dozens of military bases there, and it regularly launches operations against the PKK.

Since the start of the year, Ankara had hinted at a final summer offensive against the PKK in both northern Iraq and Syria, where the PKK operates with its local offshoot, the YPG. The said offensive apparently did not take place, but Türkiye significantly stepped up operations against the group in Iraq while bolstering security cooperation with Baghdad for further steps.

Since Jan. 1, a total of 2,149 terrorists have been targeted, 1,113 in northern Iraq and 1,036 in northern Syria, sources told a weekly press briefing in the capital Ankara last week.

Turkish operations have intensified in the region since authorities announced the ongoing Operation Claw-Lock, launched in April 2022, would be completed before the winter to sever the ties between PKK strongholds in Syria and Qandil.

The aim is to wipe out the PKK from the immediate Turkish borders and create an approximately 40-kilometer-deep security corridor along the Iraqi and Syrian borders.

Intel ops in Syria

Also on Wednesday, security sources said two key operatives of the terrorist group were eliminated in Syria by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT). The targets were identified as Hüseyin Öztürk and Vidan Fate, also known by their aliases "Mazlum" and "Zelal Afrin," respectively.

The operation was carried out in Syria’s Tal Rifaat where the two terrorists were in charge of the PKK’s units in the region.

The two PKK members were behind terrorist attacks targeting Turkish security forces deployed at an area in Syria where the army carried out the cross-border Operation Olive Branch in 2018, sources said.

Öztürk, who joined the terrorist group in 1994, was on the target list of MIT for his role in orchestrating attacks on Turkish security forces in Türkiye, Iraq and Syria in the past. He was active in Syria’s Ain al-Arab between 2015 and 2017 and was the so-called "north front commander" of the PKK in Qamishli, a stronghold of the terrorist group in Syria between 2017 and 2018.

MIT’s field agents discovered him in Tal Rifaat, operating PKK cells with Vidan Fate and eliminated both in one operation. Fate, who joined the PKK as a local "collaborator" in 1990, became an active terrorist in 2000 and traveled to Iraq and Türkiye between 2000 and 2011 to take part in the group’s activities before returning to Syria.

Captured alive

In the meantime, local authorities announced on Wednesday that a PKK member behind 20 terror attacks was captured alive by gendarmerie forces in the eastern province of Tunceli, a former hotbed of PKK activities.

The suspect, identified as M.A. and also known under the alias "Ahmet Kalker," was involved in attacks that killed 27 members of security forces and injured 35 others as well as two civilians between 1995 and 2000. Tunceli Governor Bülent Tekbıyıkoğlu said security forces also convinced C.A., a PKK member abroad, to return to Türkiye and surrender on Oct. 8.