Turkish intelligence has eliminated two PKK terrorists who were plotting attacks on Turkish troops in northern Iraq, security sources said on Monday.
The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) killed Beshir Duran, code-named “Ronahi Dhirbin,” and Dilan Okur, code-named “Arin Torhildun,” in a precision strike in Iraq’s Hakurk region, sources said.
The two terrorists had conveyed orders from the group’s so-called senior leaders to PKK terrorists on the ground to attack Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) positions in Hakirk. The sources said they were eliminated when they arrived at the meeting point.
Duran joined the PKK in 2014 and then transferred to the group in northern Iraq in 2015, where he received ideological and military training, after which he began operating in the Hakurk region.
Okur was also conscripted in 2014 when she was 15 years old and underwent mandatory ideological and militant training in northern Iraq. She was also the sister of Vedat Okur, a PKK terrorist codenamed “Turhildun Zebki” who was eliminated in 2019.
The PKK, which has killed more than 40,000 people in Turkey during a four-decade terrorist campaign, is not designated a terrorist organisation in Iraq but is banned from launching operations against Turkey from Iraqi territory.
As Turkish action has all but wiped out the PKK’s presence in the country, the group has shifted most of its operations to northern Iraq.
Ankara maintains dozens of military bases there and regularly launches operations against the PKK, which is based in the Qandil Mountains, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Erbil on the Turkish border.
The PKK also occupies Sinjar and Makhmour and has a base in Sulaymaniyah, a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where the Iraqi central government has little influence.
Since the beginning of the year, the Turkish government has hinted at a final summer offensive against the PKK in both northern Iraq and Syria, where the group operates alongside its local offshoot, the YPG.
Defense Minister Yasar Güler said the ongoing “Operation Crowlock”, which began in April 2022, will be completed by winter and will sever Syria’s ties with Qandil.
Turkey aims to clear the PKK from its borders and build a 30-40 kilometre-deep security corridor along the Iraq-Syria border.
TSK and MIT have since stepped up attacks on “terror corridors” in the region, suggesting a broader attack may already be underway.
Unconfirmed reports said Turkish troops have already been advancing along the road linking Iraq and Syria, conducting sporadic operations since last month, with airstrikes also targeting Mount Gara, a main hideout for PKK members.
Turkey’s cross-border operations into northern Iraq have been a long-standing source of tension with its southeastern neighbor, and Ankara has sought greater Iraqi cooperation in the fight against the PKK, leading Baghdad to designate it a banned group in March and set up two military bases in the Zakho region in April.
