Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has eliminated a key figure of the PKK terrorist group in an operation in northern Iraq, security sources said Thursday.
Halil Yiğit, code-named “Hogir Pirosi,” was eliminated in the Gara region, where the PKK has a stronghold, sources said.
He was the so-called leader of the PKK’s military intelligence unit in Gara, they added, and organized attacks against Turkish security forces there under orders from PKK seniors.
Yiğit joined the PKK in 2007 in Türkiye’s eastern Şırnak province, where he partook in armed and bomb attacks in the Silopi district.
He also helped mount attacks against Turkish security forces during Operation Trenches, which cracked down on PKK terrorists in Şırnak between 2015-2016.
In 2018, Yigit served briefly for the PKK’s Syrian branch, the YPG, before steering PKK operations in Gara.
The operation follows airstrikes earlier on Wednesday that destroyed a total of 24 PKK shelters, bases and depots in other mountainous regions of Iraq, including Gara, Hakurk, Qandil and Asos.
The PKK is known for using northern Iraq, near the Turkish border, as a hideout to plot terrorist attacks and launch attacks both on nearby Türkiye and locals in northern Syria.
The terrorist group has a foothold in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous north controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where the central Iraqi government has little influence.
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 Mount Qandil region, 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 and has been conducting airstrikes as part of “Claw” operations since 2022 to demolish terrorist lairs and prevent the formation of a terrorist corridor along its borders.
Türkiye's cross-border operations into northern Iraq have been a source of tension with its southeastern neighbor for years. Ankara has asked Iraq for more cooperation in combating the PKK and Baghdad labeled the group a banned organization in March.
