MİT ‘neutralizes’ senior PKK member in N Syria

ANKARA 

The National Intelligence Organization (MİT) has “neutralized” a senior PKK member the military intelligence manager of the organization stated during an operation in northern Syria.

The MİT found out Sabri Abdullah, code-named Mazlum Karamok, organized actions against Turkish soldiers and directed activities such as intelligence gathering and planning armed action against Türkiye. He was then included in the agency’s target list.

Abdullah, injured in a 2018 operation by the MİT, was appointed as the head of “the military security unit” of the organization’s Syrian offshoot, YPG, local media reported.

The terrorist was revealed during the follow-up to manage the activities of planning and organizing actions in the metropolitan cities of the country. Following his visit to the Ayn al-Arab district in northern Syria to meet with the organization he was neutralized by the MİT.

Joining the organization in 2010, Abdullah previously entered Türkiye illegally to gather information and made joint action plans with PKK members in the country’s rural areas, according to security sources local media said.

The Turkish army launched a trio of operations - Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018) and Peace Spring (2019) - across the country’s border in northern Syria to “prevent the formation of a terror corridor and enable the peaceful settlement of residents.”

Neutralized is a term used by the Turkish military and officials to indicate terrorists were either killed, wounded, or captured.

During its more than 35 years of the terror campaign, the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the U.S. and the European Union, has been responsible for the deaths of at least 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.