The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) “neutralized” a senior name of the PKK/YPG terrorist group in Syria, security sources announced Thursday.
Zülfiye Binbir, code-named "Rojna," was a “finance official” for the terrorist group in charge of the funds of the PKK/YPG. The woman, who joined the terrorist group in 1993, was detected by intelligence operatives in Syria and “neutralized” in Rmelan, a town in northeastern Syria’s Hassakeh. The area is largely controlled by the YPG, the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which occupied the area following the outbreak of civil war in Syria. “Neutralized” is a term used to describe terrorists killed or captured in operations by Turkish security forces.
Syria’s northeast has been a hotbed of PKK/YPG activity. The terrorist group threatens the security of the Turkish-Syrian border and occasionally carries out cross-border attacks. Its members also attempt to infiltrate Türkiye. MIT expanded its work in Syria’s north, especially after the Turkish army helped Syrian opposition forces retake several towns from the PKK/YPG and Daesh. The intelligence’s field operations limited the terrorist group’s movement in the region, though it enjoys support from the United States, which employs the group for what it calls a fight against Daesh.
The terrorist group now controls several oil-rich areas and runs businesses to fund its operations, especially recruitment of new members. MIT was seeking the group’s financiers in the region and had Binbir, who was based in Qamishli, Syria, under surveillance.
Binbir, who was already on the most wanted list of the Interior Ministry, was also accused of orchestrating the kidnapping of a soldier and a civil servant in 2011 in Türkiye. She traveled to Iraq in 1997, from PKK hideouts in mountainous territories in Türkiye’s southeast. She stayed in Iraq’s north where senior cadres of the terrorist group were hiding until 2004. In 2012, she moved to Syria and was in charge of training of group’s recruits. The terrorist group appointed her as a “commander” in Ain al-Arab, also known as "Kobani," Syria in 2018. Since 2021, she was based in Qamishli.
In recent years, the Turkish intelligence agency has stepped up its operations abroad 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 U.S. in Syria were eliminated in MIT’s operations in the two countries, while many PKK members were 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 an MIT operation in Syria.
Since 2016, Ankara has launched a trio of successful counterterrorism operations – Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018) and Peace Spring (2019) – across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents.
