Security forces strike PKK’s ‘winter hideouts’ across 9 cities

TURKISH security forces have destroyed dozens of hideouts belonging to the PKK terrorist group across nine provinces in ongoing counterterrorism operations, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced yesterday.

With air support from armed drones and domestically-produced attack helicopters, some 204 special teams and 2,866 security personnel, including the gendarmerie special forces, commandos and rangers, raided PKK targets in southern and eastern provinces, from Hatay to Tunceli and Diyarbakır to Hakkari, Yerlikaya said on social media platform X.

In operations across the countryside of these cities, security forces seized countless guided missiles, rocket propellants, anti-tank ammunition, hand grenades, homemade explosives, lock systems, ball cartridges, rocket launchers, as well as flamethrowers, sniper rifles and mortar ammunition, Yerlikaya informed.

“The terrorists were preparing these hideouts to use as logistics bases during the winter months and to support their activities,” the minister noted.

In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.

The terrorist group, which launched its first attacks in eastern Türkiye in the 1980s, has been more active in the southeast provinces, from Diyarbakır to Şırnak, but expanded its attacks to further north and even infiltrated into the Black Sea region.

Incessant counterterrorism operations in recent years, however, significantly reduced the PKK’s presence in all regions from the north to the east. Authorities say only dozens of terrorists are now finding shelter in Türkiye’s mountainous areas, where members hide out in winter and store munitions and survival kits.

This week’s operation was part of efforts to eliminate the PKK’s presence within Turkish borders, in tandem with Turkish airstrikes in Syria and Iraq against the terrorist group’s members holed up with Türkiye’s neighbors close to its border.

PKK terrorists often hide in northern Iraq, where it has a stronghold in the Qandil Mountains, to plot cross-border attacks in Türkiye.

Separately on Monday, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler assured Turkish security forces would “not leave any ground untouched in order to terminate the movement and action capacity” of the PKK.

“In order to achieve absolute command of the field, the pressure on the terror group will continue at a well-planned out and swiftly executed pace the terror group will not be able to foresee or react to,” Güler said at a videoconference with commanders of land, air and naval forces, as well as cross-border troops.

The minister lauded “successful” operations of recent years as having dealt a “major blow to the PKK, bringing its operational capabilities to a near end.”

Since January 2023, Turkish security forces and intelligence agency eliminated a total of 2,585 PKK terrorists in northern Iraq and Syria, according to figures from the ministry.