Türkiye's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) destroyed 23 strategically critical targets belonging to the PKK terrorist group and its United States-backed offshoot YPG in Syria, according to information from security sources on Sunday.

The strikes were against energy and infrastructure as well as so-called military and intelligence facilities, including ammunition depots and high-ranking terrorists. These included five critical infrastructure sites used for terror purposes by the PKK/YPG, three checkpoints, eight so-called military facilities, two ammunition depots, two logistics depots and two technical vehicle depots.

The agency also struck high-ranking members of the organization in the region, which security sources said would continue until the planned targets were achieved.

The operations came after nine Turkish soldiers were killed in a clash on Friday with PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, where Türkiye has been conducting Operation Claw-Lock against the terrorists.

Iraqi hideouts

Türkiye has since intensified its crackdown on PKK/YPG targets in response to the terrorists increasing their deadly attacks in the north of Syria and Iraq, killing a total of 21 Turkish soldiers in less than a month.

Immediate retaliatory Turkish airstrikes eliminated a total of 77 PKK terrorists and destroyed a total of 78 targets, including bunkers, hideouts and oil facilities, in northern Iraq and Syria since Saturday, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said Monday after holding a videoconference with military commanders overseeing Operation Claw-Lock.

Ankara has operated several dozen military posts in the area for the past 25 years in its decades-old fight against the PKK. It launched Operation Claw-Lock in April 2022 to target the PKK's hideouts in the Metina, Zap and Avasin-Basyan regions of northern Iraq, near the Turkish border.

The Turkish army aims to cut off supplies and the operational area for the terrorist group, whose leadership hides in the Qandil Mountains, which became the PKK's main headquarters in the 1990s after they left the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.

Turkish airstrikes in the Qandil area have been more frequent in recent years due to the immediate security risks of ground operations.

Precision strike

MIT, however, operates a network of field agents in the area and often conducts precision operations on more specific and high-profile PKK targets thanks to improved capacity.

On Monday, security sources said the agency eliminated Hülya Mercen, one of the group’s top ringleaders in the Metina district of northern Iraq.

It was the second consecutive precision strike MIT carried out in the area after it eliminated a so-called intelligence operative of the PKK in the Sulaymaniyah region on Sunday.

MIT had been closely monitoring the activities of a terrorist named Hasan Seburi, code-named "Redur Baz," who joined the terrorist group from Iran in 2023 and was trained to gather intelligence and carry out reconnaissance and surveillance activities against Türkiye.

YPG occupation

Türkiye also battles the YPG, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, in oil-rich northern Syria.

Security sources said weekend strikes have destroyed prefabricated structures next to the Lafarge factory there, which is located in the region U.S.-led coalition forces against Daesh evacuated after it fell into PKK’s control.

In 2022, French cement giant Lafarge paid a $777 million settlement after pleading guilty to U.S. charges of providing material support and buying protection from two designated terrorist groups, including Daesh, for the continued operation of a cement plant in northern Syria run by Lafarge's local subsidiary, Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS).

Furthermore, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency (AA) was the first to report links between the payments and French intelligence services, obtaining 2021 documents that showed Paris was aware that Lafarge was financing Daesh.

Ankara at the time pointed out the security threats that arise when terrorist groups usurp infrastructure and manufacturing facilities.

In a speech in 2019, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the amount of heavy weapons supplied to the YPG by Türkiye’s allies, notably the U.S., and the group’s use of significant facilities such as Lafarge’s vast plant in Jalabiya, which is used as a base and manufacturing site.

The PKK/YPG took advantage of a power vacuum created by the Syrian civil war and invaded several Syrian provinces, including Deir el-Zour, in 2015 with the help of Washington. The terrorists forced many locals to migrate, bringing their militants to change the regional demographic.

Deir el-Zour is a resource-rich region bordering Iraq, bisected by the Euphrates River and home to dozens of tribal communities. The PKK/YPG has seized the region's oil wells – Syria's largest – and smuggles oil to the Syrian regime despite U.S. sanctions, to generate revenue for its activities.

In October 2019, when Türkiye launched Operation Peace Spring across its southern border against the PKK/YPG, the U.S. prioritized establishing bases around oil fields as it evacuated its bases in the operation zone.

U.S. forces, continuing their support for the terrorist group, currently have a presence in numerous bases and military points in other areas like Hassakeh and Raqqa, also under the group’s occupation.

The U.S. claims that it uses YPG forces as allies in the fight against Daesh, to which Ankara has long objected on the grounds that using one terrorist group to fight another "makes no sense."

Türkiye is also fiercely opposed to the U.S. training and supporting with arms and other supplies a terrorist group that poses a threat to its borders as well as local residents of northern Syria, who have suffered under terrorist oppression and attacks.

Thousands eliminated

Since Türkiye launched a major airstrike against the PKK in 2015, more than 40,000 terrorists have been eliminated and thousands of terrorist hideouts have been destroyed.

Thanks to a markedly enhanced cooperation between MIT and the Defense and Interior Ministries, counterterrorism operations both at home and abroad have been honed to precision, especially in the past decade, against what Ankara calls an effort to establish a "terror corridor" along Türkiye’s southern border to Syria and Iraq.

Officials also tout the use of locally made defense tools and the modernization of Turkish fleets in the said achievement, which they say have given rise to a new anti-terrorism model.

Armed drones have granted MIT and the Turkish military the ability to conduct precision strikes on key targets in cross-border operations, leading to offensives like Euphrates Branch, Olive Branch and Spring Peace, which helped clear vast swathes of land from PKK terrorists in northern Iraq and Syria.

Since 1984 when the PKK kicked off its insurgency, more than 70,000 terrorists have been killed and 15,000 Turkish soldiers have been martyred.

Turkish authorities are also promising up to TL 10 million ($332,119) as a reward for those who help with the capture of high-ranking PKK members.

Türkiye currently has a wanted list of 2,306 terrorists, including 320 red-marked fugitives.