Turkish intelligence has eliminated a figure from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the biggest component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in an operation in northern Syria.
Mehmet Yildirim, a senior figure of the PKK group's Syrian wing YPG, was killed in Syria in an operation run by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT).
Yildirim, known by his code name “Hamza Kobani,” was serving as the finance official of the group in Aleppo and Tal Rifaat, security sources said Sunday.
The sources told Turkish media outlets that Yildirim was eliminated in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood of Aleppo.
Yildirim joined the group in 1986 and was engaged in its activities in Türkiye and Iraq before relocating to Syria in 2015.
Military experts consider that drones have become a key weapon for the Turkish forces amid the Russian control over the skies in northern Syria. This served Türkiye’s aim to weaken the SDF amid the American and western support to the Kurdish units as their ally in the fight against the terrorist ISIS.
Announcing the elimination of Yildirim concurred with the fifth anniversary of the seizure of Afrin by the Turkish forces and the Syrian armed factions through “Operation Olive Branch,” which was launched on Jan. 20 2018 and concluded on March 18 of the same year.
Hundreds of people displaced from Afrin went out on protests in Al-Shuhabaa and Al-Shaikh Maqsoud neighborhoods in Aleppo and areas in northern Aleppo countryside, on their fifth anniversary of being displaced, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The protesters denounced the Turkish violations in Afrin.
Moreover, dozens of citizens went to the streets in Der Ezzor’s countryside to protest the ongoing Turkish attacks in northeast Syria on the fifth anniversary of Operation Olive Branch.
Türkiye aimed through its military operation to prevent the establishment of a “terrorist belt” on its southern border.
According to the Turkish defense ministry, 7,000 SDF members were killed and 314 were wounded.
Operation Olive Branch is the second Turkish operation that inaugurated the Turkish intervention in the north of Syria following Operation Euphrates Shield through which Türkiye and loyal Syrian factions loyal laid hands over large swathes of Aleppo in 2016.
Operation Olive Branch was followed by Operation Peace Spring which was conducted by Türkiye against the SDF sites in cooperation with the national army factions in October 2019.
Afrin is 60 km far from Aleppo’s center and is one of the three Kurdish zones in northern Syria in addition to Al-Jazira in Hasaka and Ayn al-Arab (Kobani).
Unlike Al-Jazira and Kobani, Afrin is relatively far from the other Kurdish regions in northern Syria, and it represents two percent of Syria’s overall area.
Türkiye moved thousands of families of the national army fighters and their Arab and Turkmen relatives to the houses of Kurds who were displaced from Afrin, according to local activists and residents.
The economic situation which relies on agriculture has worsened since the pro-Ankara forces seized Afrin.
Investment plans were launched and the Turkish traders who have become active in Afrin benefited from them. They have found new markets.
Leaders of some factions in the national army invested their money with Syrian traders from Ghouta and Homs who were forcibly displaced.
