Turkish security forces have eliminated two so-called ringleaders of the PKK terrorist group, including one in the most wanted red category, in eastern Türkiye, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Monday.
Sultan Dağ, code-named "Beritan Amara," who was wanted in the red category, and Zeynep Nibat, code-named "Zeynep Cudi," were eliminated in the “Bozdoğan-45” operation carried out in the rural area of Batman province, Yerlikaya said on X.
Türkiye's wanted list is divided into five color-coded categories, with red as the most wanted, followed by blue, green, orange and gray.
Dağ and Cudi participated in a total of nine terror acts, in which six security forces were killed and 19 others injured, Yerlikaya added.
These spanned the grenade attack on Turkish security forces in the countryside of eastern Şırnak province in February 2016, which injured five, an armed attack in Şırnak city center in November 2016, which left one soldier dead, as well as another grenade attack in Şırnak’s Güçlükonak district in June 2018, and armed attack in eastern Mardin province’s rural Dargeçit district in October 2018, both of which killed one soldier each.
Dağ and Cudi were involved in similar grenade or armed attacks in Şırnak throughout 2019 and 2020.
Yerlikaya also said a total of 11 terrorists, including two wanted in the red category, four in orange, and two in the gray categories were eliminated by the gendarmerie in the last nine days that covered the Muslim holiday Qurban Bayram, also known as Eid al-Adha.
Batman and Şırnak, along with other eastern cities like Tunceli, Diyarbakır and Hakkari, were once synonymous with acts of terrorism where the PKK concentrated its attacks since its inception in the 1980s.
With no shelter in urban locations, the PKK takes advantage of mountainous territories in Türkiye’s southeast, where its members spend winter in remote caves. Turkish security forces regularly target PKK hideouts in these regions.
While minor clashes with terrorists claimed dozens of lives, Türkiye boasts of having suffered no major terrorist attacks on its soil since 2016.
Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq, including a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil.
Türkiye has, over the past 25 years, operated several dozen military bases in northern Iraq in its war against the PKK and has been conducting airstrikes as part of “Claw” operations since 2022 to demolish terrorist lairs and prevent the formation of a terror corridor along its borders.
Ankara has asked Iraq for more cooperation in combating the PKK. Baghdad labeled the group a banned organization in March and set up two military bases in the northern Zakho region in April.
Ankara plans a new swoop in on the PKK militants this summer and says Iraqi cooperation is paramount to eradicating the group "at its roots."
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.
Turkish forces have eliminated at least 1,151 PKK terrorists since Jan. 1 this year, including 521 in Iraq and 630 others in Syria’s north where Ankara is combating the PKK’s local offshoot, the YPG.
