Intelligence agency eliminates PKK terrorist in northern Iraq

TÜRKİYE’S National Intelligence Organization (MİT) carried out an operation in northern Iraq and eliminated a terrorist affiliated with the PKK, security sources said yesterday. The terrorist was identified as Gülsün Silgir, code-named “Sara Hogir Riha.” She was in charge of a “youth wing” of the PKK. Security sources said Silgir was involved in terrorist attacks since 2011 and was among “recruiters” for the group.

MİT tracked her down in Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah region and eliminated her in an operation in the city’s Penjwin district.

PKK terrorists often hide out in northern Iraq to plot cross-border attacks in Türkiye. Türkiye launched Operation Claw-Lock in April 2022 to target the PKK’s hideouts in Iraq’s northern Metina, Zap and AvasinBasyan regions near the Turkish border. In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the U.S. and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.

The terrorist group, which had its clout reduced in northern Iraq thanks to constant cross-border counterterrorism operations by Türkiye, finds support in Sulaymaniyah thanks to a local northern Iraqi political party.

Collaboration between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the PKK in semi-autonomous northern Iraq risks spillover of the terrorist group’s violent campaigns to the wider region. The PUK, based in northern Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, stands accused of giving more freedom of movement, both in the city and rural parts of Sulaymaniyah, to the PKK. The PKK, not recognized as a terrorist group in Iraq, seeks to legitimize its presence through political parties and nongovernmental organizations in Türkiye’s southern neighbor. In rural Sulaymaniyah, it intimidates the local population by setting up “checkpoints” and through extortions and kidnappings.

The terrorist group’s activities hindered efforts for infrastructure improvements in some 800 villages in northern Iraq and disrupted local farmers’ access to their lands, according to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Further east of Sulaymaniyah, the PKK is also involved in drug smuggling and smuggling of goods on the Iran-Iraq border. In central Sulaymaniyah, the terrorist group is affiliated with several organizations, from Tevgera Azadi, a political association, to the Kurdish Women’s Research Library and Academy.

The PUK issues IDs exclusive to its counterterrorism units to PKK members, helping them to move easily around the city and beyond. The PUK’s assistance to the PKK also helps the latter to build a strategic “bridge” with the YPG, the terrorist group’s Syria wing. The PUK is also behind military training for YPG members who cross into Iraq from northern Syria.

The scope of the PUK-PKK cooperation further became evident with a 2023 helicopter crash. Nine people killed in the collision in Iraq’s Duhok were found to be PKK members. Moreover, PUK leader Bafel Talabani sent his counterterrorism chief to the funerals of terrorists in Syria’s north a week after the crash. Ferhat Abdi Şahin, also known as “Mazloum Kobani,” leader of PKK’s YPG wing, is also a frequent visitor to Sulaymaniyah, just as Talabani himself occasionally travels to PKK strongholds in Syria.

Cemil Bayık, one of the leaders of the PKK, and Şahin were invited to a convention of Kurdish political parties in Sulaymaniyah in November 2022. As the United States did in Syria, the PUK seeks international legitimacy for its collaboration with the terrorist group under the guise of a “joint fight against the terrorist group Daesh.” The PKK uses the main airport of Sulaymaniyah for the shipment of weapons and other materials to Syria, with the assistance of the PUK.

In PUK-governed Sulaymaniyah, the PKK ran wild with its campaign of terrorism that involved the arson of offices of political parties opposing its ideology, as well as the arson of public buildings, from libraries and banks to town halls. The “youth wing” of the PKK was also behind the burning of fields in Sulaymaniyah’s rural district of Ranya in August 2023.

A representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a rival of the PUK, has called for the “prevention” of activities of the PKK following the attack, citing that the PKK’s youth wing sought to bring chaos and war to the region. Dilshad Reshid Mella, a senior member of the Gorran Movement, claimed that the PKK established a new unit in August 2023, and the group was also behind the assassination of a Peshmerga commander, as well as the killing of a Turkish diplomat stationed at Türkiye’s consulate in Irbil in northern Iraq.

Tensions have been rising between Türkiye and the PUK, one of the dominant parties in the KRG since the PKK increased its attacks on Turkish troops.

After the PKK killed 21 Turkish soldiers in the Metina region during a single month, Ankara intensified airstrikes on PKK targets and hideouts across its border, particularly in Sulaymaniyah. Since Turkish operations have driven its domestic presence to near extinction, the PKK has moved a large chunk of its operations to northern Iraq. Ankara maintains dozens of military bases there, and it regularly launches operations against the PKK, which operates a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the Turkish border in Irbil province. However, the area is under de jure control of the KRG.

Türkiye recently accused the PUK of links to the terrorist group in the city, as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned last month the country would “not hesitate to take further measures if the PUK refuses to change its supportive stance of the PKK despite Ankara’s steps toward Sulaymaniyah.”