A wanted PKK/KCK terrorist was eliminated in an operation by Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) in northern Iraq, security sources announced Friday.
Necirvan Seven, code-named "Firaz Zilan," was involved in several attacks on Turkish security forces and took part in street protests, according to sources who requested anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
Seven joined the rural establishment of the terrorist group in 2015 and was active in the so-called Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), a PKK offshoot before February 2015, the sources said.
Also, Seven participated in street riots in Türkiye to protest the conflicts between the PKK/YPG and Daesh terrorist groups in the northern Syrian region of Ain al-Arab, also known as Kobani.
The terrorist was followed by Turkish intelligence due to his actions and his role in the logistics activities of the terrorist group after crossing into northern Iraq.
Seven’s arrest comes a day after the agency announced it had eliminated a “high-ranking" member of the terrorist group in another operation in the region.
A so-called senior officer called Ahmet Gümüş, who had been training assassins at Syrian and Iraqi camps, was “neutralized” in the Gara district. He was considered among the group’s best assassins professionally trained in Greece.
Gümüş’s death marked the fourth high-profile terrorist Türkiye has eliminated in recent months, discounting the hundreds of other terrorists taken out in domestic and cross-border security operations since the start of the year.
The Turkish intelligence agency has stepped up its operations abroad in recent years to stamp out terrorist activities in Iraq and Syria, Türkiye’s two southeastern neighbors.
In 2022 alone, 23 senior figures of the terrorist group backed by the United States in Syria were eliminated in MIT’s operations in the two countries, while many PKK members were taken into custody and transported to Türkiye.
Since 2018, Turkish intelligence forces have eliminated over 100 terrorists. In February, a PKK member behind a terrorist attack on Istanbul’s Istiklal Street last year was killed in another MIT operation in Syria.
The PKK is responsible for over 40,000 civilian and security personnel deaths in Türkiye spanning an almost four-decadelong campaign of terror, and Türkiye has been conducting military operations in northern Iraq since 2019, with both ground and air forces, to battle the organization.
In the last few years, the operations intensifying in northern Iraq have demolished terrorist lairs in Metina, Avashin-Basyan, Zap and Gara. After eradicating the group's influence in these regions, Türkiye also aims to clear Qandil, Sinjar and Makhmour.
Its military involvement in northern Iraq dates back over two decades, separately from its operations against the PKK, with the operations against the Daesh terrorist group, which controlled much of the area in 2014 and 2015 when Ankara was an ally in the U.S.-led anti-Daesh campaign.
