Turkey neutralizes senior female YPG/PKK terrorist

ANKARA/SİİRT-Anadolu Agency

Turkey neutralized a senior female YPG/PKK terrorist in a joint operation by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the Turkish Armed Forces in September 2019, security sources announced on Jan. 8.

Esme Erat, codenamed Delal Nurhak, a senior terrorist in the YPG/PKK’s female branch, the PAJK, and her driver, codenamed Zilan Kobani, were neutralized in an operation late last September in northern Iraq's Qandil region, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Turkish authorities often use the word "neutralized" in their statements to imply that the terrorists in question either surrendered or were killed or captured.

Erat was born in 1965, and joined the PKK terror group in 1989 in the countryside of Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakırprovince.

Erat moved to Syria in 1993 and got political and military training from Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK terror group's ringleader, and soon was a core member of the terrorist PKK women's movement.

She became the terrorist in charge of PAJK coordination in 2014-2015, and in 2018 became a top PAJK coordinator in Qandil, the terrorist YPG/PKK’s headquarters.

PKK terrorists often use northern Iraq to plan cross-border terrorist attacks in Turkey.

In the meantime, a YPG/PKK terrorist surrendered to security forces in southeastern Turkey, according to a security source on Jan. 8.

The terrorist, who fled the PKK’s shelter areas in Syria, surrendered in Turkey’s Siirt province, said the source, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Turkish gendarmerie forces’ efforts to convince the terrorist to surrender bore fruit, it added.

The U.S.-backed SDF, a group dominated by the YPG, has been controlling some 28 percent of the Syrian territories, including the most of the 911-kilometer-long Syria-Turkey border.

Turkey deems the YPG the Syrian offshoot of the illegal PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization also by the United States and the EU.