Turkish intelligence eliminates top PKK operative in Iraq
A view of the National Intelligence Organization's (MIT) headquarters in the capital Ankara, Türkiye, Jan. 5, 2020. (AA Photo)


Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has eliminated a senior PKK operative in a precision strike in northern Iraq, security sources said Wednesday.

Sadiye Muhammed Ahmed, code-named "Hevi" was the so-called intelligence chief of the terrorist group in the Sinjar province, sources said.

She hid among the region’s Yazidi community in Sinjar where she was tasked with auditing military formations that organized the local people and reporting back to PKK stronghold in Qandil, according to security sources.

The terrorist was placed under surveillance after MIT discovered her identity and ordered the precision strike.

Sources said Ahmed joined the PKK in 2001, going on to serve in various regions across Syria, as well as Qandil, Kirkuk, Makhmour and Sinjar regions of Iraq.

She used a false ID for the duration she ran the so-called foreign affairs division of PKK’s Makhmour camp. She also coordinated the ties between PKK camps in Sinjar and Makhmour before she was named the so-called intelligence operator of PKK’s Sinjar branch.

MIT stepped up its operations against terrorist groups abroad in recent years. Counterterrorism operations largely target PKK and its affiliates. They concentrate on northern parts of Türkiye's neighbors Syria and Iraq, where the terrorist group exploits a security vacuum to operate freely.

Turkish intelligence generally carries out precision airstrikes, employing drones, but occasionally, they bring terrorism suspects alive.

The PKK, which has massacred over 40,000 people in Türkiye in a four-decadelong terror campaign, is not designated a terrorist organization in Iraq but is banned from launching operations against Türkiye from Iraqi territory.

The PKK also occupies Sinjar, Makhmour and has a foothold in Sulaymaniyah, which sits in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous north controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where the central Iraqi government has little influence.