6 more PKK terrorists killed in Turkish airstrikes

By Muhammed Boztepe and Haydar Toprakci

ANKARA

Turkish airstrikes killed six PKK terrorists in two separate raids, according to official accounts on Thursday.

Turkish military aircraft pounded PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Mt. Qandil area -- the so-called headquarters of the PKK terrorist group -- killing four militants, according to a Turkish General Staff statement.

The airstrikes also destroyed a DShK anti-aircraft gun position and a shelter used by terrorists, said the military.

In another operation in the eastern province of Tunceli, two PKK members were also killed on Thursday, Tunceli Governor Tuncay Sonel told Anadolu Agency.

“Two male terrorists were found dead in the Mazgirt district’s Kepir Ormanları area following an air operation by armed unmanned aerial vehicles,” he said.

He added that the terrorists’ bodies were found in a search mission by Gendarmerie Special Forces after the air raid.

One of the terrorists was identified as Davut, an Iranian national codenamed “Agir” who had been a local terrorist commander for five years.

During the operation, one M-16 and a Kalashnikov belonging to the terrorists were also seized, he added.

The air raid in Tunceli was a part of an ongoing counter-terrorism operation that had already killed six PKK terrorists on Wednesday in the province’s Nazimiye district, according to an earlier statement from Sonel’s office.

It said that last month the six slain PKK terrorists had abducted and killed a young teacher named Necmettin Yilmaz.

On June 16, 23-year-old Yilmaz’s car came under terrorist fire while he was heading home to the Black Sea province of Gumushane from the southeastern Sanliurfa province.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU -- resumed its decades-old armed campaign in July 2015.

Since then, more than 1,200 victims, including security personnel and civilians, have lost their lives.