Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced the figures on Türkiye’s counterterrorism efforts last year, noting that the security forces carried out 130,981 operations in rural parts of the country that terrorists favor as hideouts and neutralized 129 terrorists.
The minister in a social media post on Tuesday said that 22 among them were captured alive.
Most operations were precision strikes while 578 among them were more comprehensive sweeps, the minister informed.
“Our fight against terrorism continues. By God’s will, we will not leave a single terrorist in the mountains on the centenary of the Republic of Türkiye,” Soylu affirmed. Apart from Daesh and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the PKK is the primary threat to Türkiye, which lost thousands of lives to a decadeslong campaign of violence by the terrorist group, particularly in the southeast.
The minister went on to add that the security forces demolished 1,190 terrorist hideouts and shelters. Nearly 1,000 weapons, 1,131 hand grenades, 275 mines/handmade explosives, 7.9 tons of explosives and nearly 430,000 rounds of ammunition of various types were seized.
He also noted that the number of PKK terrorists in Türkiye decreased to below 120 in 2022.
A total of 87 high-ranking figures of the terrorist groups were also neutralized in 2022. Most of them were already on the Interior Ministry’s “most wanted” list which offers prizes for tip-offs for the capture of terrorists. Two neutralized terrorists were in the red category of the most wanted list – which usually includes the most senior members of the terrorist groups.
Authorities also thwarted 185 terrorist attacks last year, including 18 by suicide bombers and potential suicide bombers. Also in 2022, 29,751 people suspected of links to the terrorist groups and abetting them were detained. Of about 17,805 suspects among them, a few were members of FETÖ, while 8,410 others were PKK members. A total of 2,820 members of Daesh and the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) groups were detained while other detained suspects were members of far-left terrorist groups.
Soylu said incidents of terrorism dropped by 21% compared to 2021, while 125 members of the PKK were convinced by authorities to surrender in 2022. The minister added that the number of people joining the PKK also dropped as compared to past years.
In 2014, over 5,500 people joined the terrorist group while it dropped below 1,000 in 2016. Last year, only 57 people joined the group.
