Over dozen Kurdish PKK terrorists killed in Turkish airstrike on northern Iraq
More than a dozen PKK terrorists have been killed as Turkish military aircraft targeted the militant group’s hideouts in the northern parts of Iraq.
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The Turkish General Staff, in a message published on its official Twitter page, said fighter jets had conducted airstrikes against Avasin region in northern Iraq on Saturday, and “neutralized” 14 PKK terrorists in the process.
The Turkish military generally uses the term "neutralize" to signify that the militants were killed, captured or surrendered.
Turkey’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on October 4 that high-profile Kurdish PKK terrorist Mehmet Sait Sürer, better known by the nom de guerre Cuma Mardin, had been neutralized during an airstrike against a militant position in the Nusaybin district of the country’s southeastern province of Mardin.
The statement added that the militant had a $647,360 bounty on his head, and was in the red category of the ministry's wanted terrorists.
PKK militants regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq.
Turkey, along with the European Union and the United States, has declared the PKK a terrorist group and banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.
A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.
Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.
More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.
