Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has caught three PKK terrorists in an operation in northern Syria.

According to security sources speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), the three terrorists were planning an attack on security forces in areas cleared of terrorism in northern Syria and were heading to the Amanos Mountains along a route that included Tal Rifaat, Azaz, Afrin, Kilis and the village of Gülbaba.

Ferhad Edemen, code-named "Adnan Piro," Ozan Tunç, code-named "Bahtiyar," and Mehmet Kaykır, code-named "Çem Riha," left Tal Rifaat and entered the Operation Euphrates Shield area.

The terrorists were brought to the entrance of Afrin city center by undercover Syrian National Army (SNA) members posing as militants, after which MIT caught the three terrorists, who were in possession of weapons, on the road from Afrin to Azaz.

Kaykır joined the terrorist organization in 2012 while Edemen entered in 2010 and Tunç in 2014. Kaykır had participated in the activities of the PKK's youth wing and carried out acts for the PKK in Iran. He was assigned as the chief of the Dörtyol area.

Edemen, on the other hand, had acted as a courier and intelligence officer in the Amanos area prior to Operation Olive Branch. Tunç served as the bodyguard of senior PKK terrorist Fehman Hüseyin.

For more than 40 years, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.

Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of successful counterterrorism operations across its border in northern Syria and northern Iraq to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield in 2016, Olive Branch in 2018 and Peace Spring in 2019.