Türkiye’s intelligence agency has eliminated two PKK terrorists plotting an attack on its armed forces in northern Iraq, security sources said Monday.
The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) took out Vesile Duran, code-named “Ronahi Dilhvin,” and Dilan Öklü, code-named “Arin Tolhildan,” in a precision strike in the Hakurk region of Iraq, sources said.
The two terrorists were relaying to the PKK terrorists in the field orders from the group’s so-called senior ringleaders to attack Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) positions in Hakurk. Sources added that they were eliminated when they arrived at the meeting point.
Duran joined the PKK first in 2014 before moving to the group’s northern Iraq ranks in 2015, where she was given ideological and armed training. She later began operating in the Hakurk region.
Öklü was similarly recruited in 2014 when she was just 15 and given mandatory ideological and armed training in northern Iraq. She was also the sister of Vedat Öklü, another PKK terrorist code-named "Tolhildan Zevki," who was eliminated in 2019.
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.
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 uses a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil.
The PKK also occupies Sinjar, Makhmour and has a foothold in Sulaymaniyah, which sits in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous north controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where the central Iraqi government has little influence.
Since the start of the year, Ankara has hinted at a final summer offensive against the PKK in both northern Iraq and Syria, where the PKK operates with its local offshoot, the YPG.
Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said that the ongoing Operation Claw-Lock, launched in April 2022, would be completed before the winter to sever the ties between Syria and Qandil.
Türkiye aims to wipe out the PKK from its borders and create a 30-40 kilometers deep security corridor along the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
Both the TSK and the MIT have since ramped up strikes on the “terror corridor” in the region, indicating a wider offensive may already be underway.
Unconfirmed reports say the Turkish army is already advancing along a road connecting Iraq to Syria and has occasionally carried out operations since last month. Airstrikes have also targeted Mount Gara, where the PKK members have a major hideout.
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. As a result, Baghdad labeled the group a banned organization in March and set up two military bases in the Zakho region in April.
