Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Wednesday that gendarmerie forces demolished 18 shelters belonging to the PKK terrorist group across Türkiye in a new round of operations. Operation Heroes-44, the latest in a string of crackdowns targeting the PKK, is part of counterterrorism efforts to eliminate the group’s presence within Turkish borders. It comes in the aftermath of Turkish airstrikes in Syria and Iraq against the terrorist group's members holed up with Türkiye’s neighbors.

Although its activities are significantly reduced within Turkish territories, the PKK finds shelter in mountainous areas where members hide out in winter and store munitions and survival kits. Yerlikaya said the gendarmerie’s special operations branch, in coordination with local village guards and flanked by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carried out operations in the eastern provinces of Bingöl, Siirt, Şırnak, Diyarbakır and Tunceli, Hatay in the south and Giresun in northern Türkiye. Inside shelters, soldiers seized an abundant cache of weapons and munitions from rocket launchers, sniper rifles, pistols, anti-personnel landmines, night goggles, plastic explosives and material used in the production of explosive devices, along with health kits.

Separately, the Ministry of National Defense said on Wednesday that four PKK/YPG terrorists were eliminated, with their plot to attack an area in Syria liberated from terrorists thwarted, thanks to the Turkish army's operations. The ministry said in a social media post that terrorists were "neutralized" in Operation Euphrates Shield zone where a Turkish cross-border military operation took place between 2016 and 2017. The said operation helped the Syrian opposition to clear the country's north from terrorists but also brought them closer to the threat of the terrorist group, which still controls lands northeast of the country.