Turkiye eliminates PKK head of self-defence units in Iraq

Turkish intelligence has reportedly eliminated a leading Kurdish militant in Iraq who was responsible for training members over the decades, making him the latest such figure to be killed by Turkiye in Iraq throughout Ankara’s ongoing campaign to curb Kurdish separatist efforts.

According to Turkish media outlets, which cited unnamed security sources, the country’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) was today revealed to have eliminated Lokman Ismail – a Syrian national code-named ‘Şiyar Muhtar’ – in a precision strike on northern Iraq near the Turkish border.

Ismail, described as the head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) self-defence units, had reportedly been an active and leading member in the militant and designated terror group over the past 30 years.

Having first joined it in 1995 in his native Syria, he was trained by the PKK’s notorious leader, Abdullah Ocalan – who remains imprisoned in Turkiye following his capture 25 years ago – before leading armed activity within Turkiye between 1996 and 2004.

From there, he moved to the Iraqi region of Zap, where he was further given special military training at PKK camps. During the Turkish military’s Operation Trenches between the years 2015 to 2016, which consisted of a crackdown on PKK militants in Turkiye’s eastern Sirnak province, Ismail reportedly organised attacks against security forces in the area and, in 2019, ordered Syrian nationals’ bomb attack on two cars in the southern Adana province.

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