12 districts at ‘high risk’ as PKK continues pressure: intelligence report

Fevzi Kızılkoyun - ANKARA

DHA photo

A police intelligence report has revealed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) poses a “high risk” in 12 districts in southeastern Turkey, as the group continues to put pressure on people in the region.

Members of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), the PKK’s youth wing, as well as armed militants from rural areas, ammunition and weapons have been deployed  in the southeastern Yüksekova, Cizre, Silopi, Çukurca, Nusaybin, Şemdinli, Eruh, Varto, Bulanık and Lice districts, according to the report. 

Meanwhile, the group has established checkpoints in the region with the aim of setting up security zones and cantons, sources told daily Hürriyet.

As long as the group operates in city centers, clashes stay confined to those centers rather than rural areas, according to the report, which added the PKK has attempted to prevent intervention by Turkey’s security forces by using civilians as human shields, according to the report. 

PKK militants roam the streets at night in the Silvan, Lice, Varto and Yüksekova districts, where curfews were declared by the local governorates, and carry out attacks on security forces from difficult to define positions, according to the report.

Night operations by security forces have been conducted only by armored vehicles.

Security forces have filled in ditches and destroyed concealed explosive devices, but the PKK militants continue to dig more ditches and set more explosives after nightfall, according to the report. 

It has been estimated some 200 armed militants are deployed in those districts, according to the report.

Eleven PKK members were killed in operations carried out in five districts, 33 were detained and 600 kg of explosive material was seized in Silvan, the report said.