Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has eliminated a top figure in the terrorist group PKK’s so-called financial wing, security sources said Wednesday.
The location of the terrorist, Shiraz Omer, codenamed Sozdar Afrin, was determined as a result of intelligence work, sources said.
The terrorist, who was a so-called executive in the financial structure of the terrorist group and was followed by Turkish intelligence, was “neutralized” in a precise operation on the Rumailan-Malikiye road in Syria.
In recent years, Türkiye has stepped up domestic operations and efforts across its borders against the terrorist group and convinced a substantial number of members to abandon the PKK.
The PKK, which has massacred over 40,000 people in Türkiye in a four-decadelong terror campaign, is not designated a terrorist organization in Iraq but is banned from launching operations against Türkiye from Iraqi territory.
The YPG is its Syrian offshoot based in northeastern regions close to the Turkish border.
Since the fall of Bashar Assad on Dec. 8, the group has sought to exploit the uncertain situation in Syria to accelerate efforts to establish a “terrorist corridor” along the border with Türkiye.
Ankara has mounted multiple operations against the PKK/YPG in Syria since 2016. In Iraq, it maintains dozens of military bases and its airstrikes regularly target terrorist hideouts.
MIT itself has stepped up its operations against terrorist groups abroad in recent years. The counterterrorism operations primarily target the PKK and its affiliates. They concentrate on the northern parts of Türkiye’s neighbors, Syria and Iraq, where the terrorist group exploits a security vacuum to operate freely.
Turkish intelligence generally carries out precision airstrikes, employing drones, but occasionally, they bring in terrorist suspects alive.
Türkiye has said the new Syrian administration must be given an opportunity to address the YPG presence but also threatened to mount a new cross-border operation against the PKK/YPG terrorists based in northeast Syria if its demands are not met.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has earlier called the YPG the biggest problem in Syria and warned the terrorist group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms.
Turkish operations have eliminated over 3,220 PKK/YPG terrorists in northern Iraq and Syria in 2024.
