The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have eliminated three more members of the PKK terrorist group in northern Iraq after the group’s harassment fire martyred six Turkish soldiers in the same region Wednesday, the country’s Defense Ministry said early Friday.

Three PKK terrorists were eliminated in an airstrike in the region where Operation Claw-Lock is being conducted, raising the number of terrorists killed since yesterday to seven, the ministry said in a statement.

In the past week, Turkish airstrikes killed five other PKK terrorists in the region.

"Türkiye will continue holding terrorists who martyred our soldiers accountable," the ministry said.

All of the killed soldiers were laid to rest in ceremonies in their hometowns on Friday.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organization in Türkiye, along with the United States and the European Union. It has waged a bloody insurgency in Türkiye since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including women and children.

Ankara maintains dozens of military bases in northern Iraq where it regularly launches operations against the group, which has maintained a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains since the 1990s. Operation Claw-Lock was the latest offensive launched in April 2022 to target the group's hideouts in the Metina, Zap and Avasin-Basyan regions.

Türkiye has so far stopped 586 terrorists in the said region, a ministry official reported Thursday.

Since this January, the PKK and its Syrian wing, the YPG, have carried out 86 harassment incidents and attacks in Türkiye's operation areas, and 744 terrorists were "neutralized" with the immediate intervention of Turkish soldiers. Turkish authorities use the term "neutralize" to imply that the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

Ankara has previously said that it would not shy away from targeting terrorist threats if the Iraqi officials failed to take the necessary steps to eliminate the terrorist group.

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 four decades, with the first extensive operation carried out in 1983 and operations intensifying in the mid-1990s when the PKK increased attacks and infiltration near border towns.

Separately from its operations against the PKK, Turkish operations 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.

9 PKK suspects caught

Meanwhile, Türkiye has stepped up its crackdown on terrorists and their links at home by conducting pinpoint operations and freezing assets to eliminate the terrorist groups at their roots.

Similarly, on Friday, nine suspects with links to the PKK were captured in a dawn operation in the southern Mersin province.

The city’s counterterrorism police department detected eight people working for the group, along with three others who illegally came to Mersin after working for the PKK/YPG.

Some suspects were spreading PKK propaganda, while some others were planning an attack, the police said.

A task force of 200 officers raided various locations to detain the suspects. They continue to pursue two others who fled during the operation.

Groups like Daesh, the PKK and U.S.-backed YPG rely on a network of members and supporters in Türkiye for funds and ammunition.

15-year-old victim and his guardian

Türkiye on Friday also commemorated 15-year-old Eren Bülbül, and gendarmerie Sgt. Ferhat Gedik who fought to protect him during clashes with the PKK in the northeastern Trabzon province six years ago.

Bülbül died from gunshot wounds sustained as he helped the gendarmerie track PKK terrorists near his house in Maçka, a town 22 kilometers (14 miles) south of Trabzon, on Aug. 11, 2017. Gedik, 41, was injured in the same incident and later died as well.

"What my son has done isn’t forgotten still," Bülbül’s mother Ayşe Bülbül said Friday as hundreds gathered by his grave in Maçka to offer prayers and leave flowers.

"I’m happy and at peace that my son was martyred for our country. I am saddened by what he went through while he was alive but martyrdom was written in Eren’s fate. There’s nothing to say. May God bless all our martyrs and give strength to their mothers," Bülbül told Anadolu Agency (AA).

Gedik’s family also remembers their son and his sacrifice with pride, praising him for his "compassion and bravery."

"When he wanted to take the mission to the mountains, I begged him not to go, as if I felt something was going to happen but he told me, ‘Who will if not me?’" Gedik’s mother Hatice Gedik said.

Gedik was martyred after performing his last Friday prayers, his mother recalled. "It was also his birthday. He threw himself over Eren Bülbül and died by 41 bullets on his 41st birthday," she said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan too sent his condolences to the two martyrs. "We have not and will not let the deaths of Eren and many like him who bravely defended their homeland, go to waste. Our fight against the PKK and its extensions will continue until the end," he wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

While the killing of Bülbül by the PKK united Türkiye in condemning the terrorist group years ago, it also made the country remember the hundreds of civilians who have become victims of PKK terrorism.

His death has been mourned nationwide since as citizens annually remember him with messages of love and respect.

Ankara launched a series of counterterrorism operations dubbed "Eren" in 2021, naming them after him in his honor. Various institutions like orphanages, libraries and youth centers, and even a Dreamliner for Turkish Airlines, have been given Eren’s name since. Moreover, a film telling the story of Bülbül and Gedik, called "Kesişme; İyi ki Varsın Eren" ("Intersection: Glad to have you Eren"), was released in theaters in January 2022.