Police foil latest bomb plot by the PKK, capture 4 militants

As the PKK terrorist group have struggled to escalate its attacks in Turkey, police have stopped two bombing plots in western and southern Turkey since Monday. Four militants were nabbed in the latest operation in Adana province yesterday

In a major blow to the campaign of terror by the PKK, police captured militants on Monday and yesterday as they were planning attacks in western and southern Turkey. A large cache of explosives and weapons were found in the possession of 13 suspected militants captured in the city of İzmir in the west and Adana in the south.

The terrorist group, which resumed its campaign of violence last summer after a brief lull is responsible for attacks that have killed more than 600 security personnel and civilians, mostly in the southeastern Turkey.

Yesterday, police in Adana captured İhsan O., a young militant preparing to strike an airport, local governorate, a courthouse and police stations in Adana with a string of bombings and four others aiding him. Anti-terror police found 21 kg of TNT and 1 kg of C4 explosive as well as two grenades in a warehouse used by suspects. The operation came after recent intelligence reports pointed out that the terrorist group that has faced a large-scale crackdown and high number of casualties in recent days, and was preparing to carry out simultaneous bomb attacks in several cities. Acting on an intelligence tip-off that a PKK militant infiltrated from Syria's Kobane where the YPG, the Syrian branch of the terrorist group has presence, anti-terror teams of police tracked down suspects and found out they were conducting reconnaissance near strategic and busy locations in Adana. Suspects were in the warehouse they used as a meeting point when the police raided and working on setting up explosives shipped to Adana during the last week of September. The local court ordered arrests of suspects who admitted they were planning the attacks. The operation follows an alert by the U.S. mission in Turkey to U.S. nationals in the country that warned them against possible attacks at the hotels in Adana.

On Monday and early yesterday, police in İzmir, the third largest city of Turkey, captured nine suspects in a manhunt against the PKK militants planning attacks in the city and seized explosive materials, AK-47 rifles and pistols. Suspects have arrived in the city last week and were scouting locations for possible attacks, police sources quoted by the media said. Authorities said the militants eyed offices of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in the city and busy streets as potential targets, and one of the militants was caught red-handed as he was trying to hide explosives sent by a suspect outside the city in a forested area in İzmir's Karabağlar district. İzmir was on alert after police made the photos of suspects public and set up checkpoints across the city.

The terrorist group, which draws recruits mainly from the predominantly Kurdish southeast, is mostly involved in attacks in the cities in that region though it occasionally targets big cities like Istanbul and the capital Ankara. Military experts believe that intense anti-terror operations in the rural southeast where mountainous terrain provides natural hideouts for militants, will force the group to further turn its attention to more urban parts of the country.

A senior leader of the PKK threatened in August that they would "wage war everywhere" and "the war is not limited to the mountains anymore." "The police will no longer live as comfortably as they used to in the cities," the senior PKK militant Cemil Bayık told PKK-linked media outlets.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU, resumed its nearly 40-year-old violent campaign against Turkey in July 2015. Since then, it has lost thousands of militants as Turkish security forces responded to its attacks with a crackdown on terrorists both in the southeastern and eastern regions as well as in Northern Iraq where rugged territory controlled by Iraqi Kurds provides a safe hideout for militants including senior cadres of the group.