Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has eliminated two PKK terrorists preparing to attack Turkish military posts in the northern Iraqi region of Hakurk, security sources said Thursday.
The terrorists, identified as Ahmet Bayar, code-named "Tufan Koçer," and Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Ahmed, code-named "Mervan Zerevan," were instructed to infiltrate Turkish military bases, sources said.
Bayar joined the PKK’s rural ranks in 2012, operated in Syria for many years and served as a bodyguard for the PKK’s senior members. After climbing the ranks, he moved to the Avasin region of Iraq, where he took part in attacks against Türkiye before moving to Hakurk in 2018.
Al-Ahmed received assassination and sabotage training in the Qandil Mountains after he joined the PKK through its Syrian arm in Aleppo in 2014. He, too, moved to the PKK’s Hakurk branch in 2014.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, as well as the United States and the European Union.
Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq, including a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil.
Türkiye has, over the past 25 years, operated several dozen military bases in northern Iraq in its war against the PKK, as well as the war against Daesh, which controlled much of the area, in 2014 and 2015, when Ankara was an ally in the U.S.-led anti-Daesh campaign.
Ankara launched Operation Claw-Lock in April 2022, the latest in the string of cross-border "Claw" offensives kicked off in 2019, to demolish terrorist lairs across Metina, Avashin-Basyan, Zap and Gara districts and prevent the formation of a terror corridor along Turkish borders.
The PKK carried out attacks, killing more than a dozen Turkish soldiers in the past two months in Metina. The high toll led to an increase in Turkish operations, which sometimes take place deep into Iraqi territory.
The operations have regularly strained bilateral ties, but officials have repeatedly assured Türkiye's respect of Iraq's sovereignty and commitment to only targeting terrorists.
Ankara plans a new swoop in on the militants this summer and has sought Iraqi cooperation in the form of a joint operations room, as well as recognition by Baghdad of the PKK threat.
Iraq last month announced it had set up two military bases in its Zakho region and deployed troops to the region for the first time in over three decades.
Ankara is also preparing to provide Iraq with technical assistance for securing its borders to prevent the mobility of PKK around the region.
In Syria, the PKK operates through its local offshoot, the YPG, which has occupied a chunk of the civil war-torn country’s northeast since 2015, with military and material assistance from the U.S.