The Interior Ministry announced a major operation in Türkiye’s east on Monday in a bid to destroy the winter hideouts of the terrorist group PKK. The operation comes one day after an attack by the PKK in northern Iraq, which killed three Turkish soldiers.

Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a social media post that "Heroes-30" – the latest in a string of counterterrorism operations launched after PKK’s Oct. 1 attack that targeted police headquarters in the capital Ankara – covered six provinces. Yerlikaya said gendarmerie forces destroyed 63 caves, shelters and depots used by the terrorist group to hide munitions in rural parts of the country to be used in terror attacks in winter. Operations were held in the provinces of Şırnak, Siirt, Kahramanmaraş, Diyarbakır, Muş and Tunceli. Soldiers, flanked by indigenously developed ATAK helicopters and armed drones, combed the terrorist shelters and discovered sniper rifles, grenades, explosives, landmines, material used for making explosives, survival kits and a large cache of ammunition before destroying the shelters.

Also on Monday, the Defense Ministry announced that three soldiers were killed during a counterterrorist operation in northern Iraq.

Soldiers Necdet Çalış and Emrah Gündüz were "martyred and two soldiers were wounded due to an attack by members of the separatist terrorist organization" in Türkiye’s Operation Claw-Lock zone, the ministry said in a statement. One of the wounded, identified as Fevzi Kızıltaş, later succumbed to his injuries, it added. The terrorists’ affiliation was not specified, but the PKK terrorist group has been known to be active in the region.

Türkiye launched Operation Claw-Lock last year in April to target the PKK terror group’s hideouts in the Metina, Zap and Avasin-Basyan regions of northern Iraq, located near the Turkish border. It was preceded by two operations and Claw-Eagle launched in 2020 to root out terrorists hiding in the north of Iraq and plotting cross-border attacks in Türkiye.

In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK-listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, Britain and the European Union, has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.

The terrorist group, which launched its first attacks in eastern Türkiye in the 1980s, has been more active in the southeast provinces, from Diyarbakır to Şırnak, but expanded its attacks to further north and even infiltrated into the Black Sea region. Incessant counterterrorism operations in recent years, however, significantly reduced the PKK’s presence in all regions from the north to the east. Authorities say only dozens of terrorists are now in hiding in Türkiye. The PKK, however, retains hideouts and an unknown number of recruits in the northern regions of Iraq and Syria, both near Turkish borders.

The Defense Ministry announced last week that Türkiye neutralized 1,927 PKK terrorists inside the country, in Iraq and Syria, including 59 in the preceding week. "Neutralized" is a term used to describe terrorists captured alive and dead. "Thus, the number of terrorists neutralized since July 24, 2015, has reached 39,270," the ministry’s press adviser, Adm. Zeki Aktürk, said at a press briefing, referring to the date of Türkiye’s first major cross-border operations against the terrorist group after a brief lull.

Aktürk also noted that 110 terrorists turned themselves in since January, pointing out that two terrorists surrendered last week after fleeing Iraq in the previous instance of surrenders. "Operations in Türkiye and beyond the borders dealt a heavy blow to the terrorist group and brought their activities almost to a halt," he highlighted. Aktürk said security forces recently raided a large cave used as a hideout by terrorists in northern Iraq and confiscated a large cache of munitions. In Syria’s north, Turkish troops faced terrorist attacks but duly responded to them, Aktürk said. He highlighted that terrorists carried out 445 attacks, including those involving harassment fire since Jan. 1, but Turkish forces retaliated by striking the terrorist positions. On border security, Aktürk said they intercepted 12,467 people since Jan. 1 before they infiltrated into Türkiye and 576 among them were terrorists.