Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has "neutralized" another high-ranking member of the PKK terrorist organization in northern Iraq, security sources said on Monday, days after PKK attacks killed 12 Turkish soldiers in the region.
The intelligence team carried out a targeted operation in the city of Sulaymaniyah to neutralize Erdinç Bolcal, code-named "Ali Xebat."
Bolcal was responsible for providing ideological and military training to terrorists for attacks against security forces and was preparing for an operation in Kirkuk.
The terrorist, under surveillance by Turkish intelligence, was neutralized in a pinpoint operation along with other PKK terrorists.
Turkish authorities use the term "neutralize" to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.
Turkish strikes targeting PKK hideouts in Iraq, as well as Syria, where the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, the YPG, is active, have intensified and destroyed dozens of targets since PKK attacks on a Turkish military base in the region left 12 soldiers dead on Friday and Saturday.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed Türkiye would pay "whatever the cost" to prevent the emergence of a "terrorist structure" in northern Iraq and Syria.
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union – is responsible for over 40,000 civilian and security personnel deaths in Türkiye during an almost four-decadelong campaign of terror.
Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq.
Ankara maintains dozens of military bases there, and it regularly launches operations against the PKK, which maintains a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil province, although the area is under de jure control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The group’s occupation of Sinjar, Makhmour, Qandil and Sulaymaniyah continues to threaten local residents and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, but neither the Baghdad government nor the KRG recognize the PKK as a terrorist group.
Turkish officials often urge both administrations to take joint action against the terrorists and express readiness to collaborate with Baghdad against both the PKK and Daesh, another terrorist group.
Both the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) regularly conduct cross-border operations in these regions, particularly in northern Iraq, where the PKK terrorists have hideouts and bases from which they carry out attacks against Türkiye.
In the last few years, the operations intensifying in northern Iraq have demolished terrorist lairs in Metina, Avashin-Basyan, Zap and Gara. After eradicating the group’s influence in these regions, Türkiye also aims to clear Qandil, Sinjar and Makhmour.
Türkiye’s military involvement in northern Iraq dates back over two decades, separately from its operations against the PKK, including the war against the Daesh terrorist group, which controlled much of the area, in 2014 and 2015, when Ankara was an ally in the U.S.-led anti-Daesh campaign.
The terrorist group has been more active in Syria after a civil war broke out more than a decade ago. YPG terrorists control areas near the Syrian-Iraqi border, and unconfirmed reports say they travel between the two countries secretly.