Security forces eliminated a terrorist who was in the top red category of the Interior Ministry’s wanted list in eastern Mardin province along with another terrorist, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Monday.

The minister wrote on social media that the Mardin provincial gendarmerie command, in coordination with the Gendarmerie General Command’s intelligence unit, had started to track a suspected vehicle in the rural area of Mardin’s Dargeçit district.

Once it was determined the vehicle stopped on the Dargeçit-Midyat road at a gas station, the Heroes-32 operation was launched.

"As our armored vehicles approached the vehicle, fire was opened at our armored vehicles from inside the other vehicle and after the subsequent conflict, the two terrorists, realizing that they could not escape, blew themselves up," the minister elaborated.

One of the terrorists was determined to be Orhan Elma, code-named "Rodi Hayri," wanted in the red category while identification of the other terrorist continued.

Yerlikaya added that Elma was responsible for instructing four terrorist attacks, which cost the lives of five and injured 12.

On the other side, security forces abroad similarly continued their counterterrorism operations.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) eliminated three PKK terrorists in the Operation Claw-Lock zone in northern Iraq, the Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

The ministry said on X: "As a result of our determined operations in the area of Operation Claw-Lock, three PKK terrorists were identified and eliminated by the Turkish Armed Forces."

Türkiye launched Operation Claw-Lock last year in April to target the PKK terror group’s hideouts in the Metina, Zap and Avasin-Basyan regions of northern Iraq, located near the Turkish border.

In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of at least 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.