Security sources announced on Tuesday that Ayşe Arslan, a "senior" member of the terrorist group PKK, was “neutralized” in an operation in Iraq’s north. “Neutralized” is a term used by Turkish officials to describe terrorists captured alive or dead.
The operation by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) comes one day after officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that controls northern Iraq announced a Turkish drone strike killed two PKK members. The Turkish sources said a “precision operation” was carried out to neutralize Arslan but did not give any details about the second target of the operation, which Iraqi Kurdish counterterrorism officials told international media outlets.
Arslan, also known as "Tekoşin Cizre," was in charge of PKK units in Hakurk of northern Iraq, according to Turkish sources. KRG officials said the strike took place in Buskini, a village where a group of PKK members convened. Buskini lies north of Sulaimaniyah, whose “people are almost taken hostage by the terrorist group,” as a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement from September pointed out.
Arslan joined the terrorist group in 2004 and traveled to Syria, where PKK’s Syria branch, the YPG, was active in 2014. MIT’s field operatives located Arslan in Hakurk recently and discovered that she and other terrorists were plotting an attack targeting the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). The TSK often carries out operations in the region against the PKK.
Last month, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his country would “continue to intensify” its strikes against the PKK in Iraq and Syria.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
Ankara maintains dozens of military bases in northern Iraq, where it regularly launches operations against the group, which holds a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains. In the last few years, intensifying operations in the region 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, and also included 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.
The Turkish intelligence agency stepped up its operations against the PKK in Iraq and Syria in recent years as the terrorist group expanded its clout in the two countries neighboring Türkiye.
In 2022 alone, 23 senior figures of the terrorist group were eliminated in MIT’s operations in the two countries, while many PKK members were brought to Türkiye.
