A PKK/YPG terrorist using a fake Palestinian passport was captured as he was plotting an attack in Istanbul, authorities said Wednesday.
Imad al-Halaf, a Syrian national code-named “Haydar Ali Cuma,” entered Türkiye from Syria and used a fake Palestinian passport to avoid detection while in the city, authorities said.
After intelligence that he had infiltrated the country, al-Halaf was tracked to locate his hideout, where a special forces team captured him in an operation in the past week.
According to Istanbul police, al-Halaf held a high rank within the PKK/YPG branch in northern Syria’s Qamishli region and was instructed by PKK seniors to continue his activities in Istanbul.
The police raid also seized a large number of organizational documents and digital materials at his address.
Al-Halaf has been active within the PKK/YPG since 2015, which is backed by pictures of him among PKK/YPG ranks in the Syrian countryside found in his hideout. He was given ideological and so-called special armed forces training within the terrorist group, also revealed by pictures of him in camouflage gear holding long-range weapons. Other pictures showed he had partaken in dozens of PKK/YPG activities in Syria.
Police are currently investigating whether al-Halaf was trained in explosives and searching for a person or persons who may have aided and abetted his illegal entry to Türkiye.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 to achieve a so-called Kurdish self-rule in southeastern regions and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, as well as the United States and the European Union. The conflict has since spilled over to northern Iraq and Syria.
The YPG is the PKK’s Syrian offshoot that exploited the power vacuum during the Syrian civil war to occupy swathes of oil and gas-rich land and create a self-styled entity in northeastern Syria.
Turkish security forces regularly carry out strikes in PKK/YPG-held areas of northern Iraq and Syria. Ankara says it aims to create a security strip along its Syrian and Iraqi borders and sever the ties between the YPG and PKK strongholds in northern Iraq’s Qandil region.
At home, police captured 19 PKK/YPG suspects in four provinces, including the western city of Izmir, police said Wednesday.
The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Izmir said it has an arrest warrant out for 23 suspects in total, including six foreign nationals, who operated in PKK/YPG’s rural branch in the past and now spread terrorist propaganda on social media.
