Turkish Armed Forces have neutralized 1,441 PKK terrorists in northern Iraq as part of its Operation Claw series, Yeni Safak reports.
After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that "a new security concept has been developed in the fight against terrorism," terrorist hideouts in northern Iraq were destroyed through successive operations.
The first of these operations, dubbed the "Claw series", was carried out three years ago.
The greenlight was given on May 27, 2019 for the operation which targeted the caves and shelters used by the PKK terrorist group in the Hakurk region.
After the identified terrorist targets were successfully taken under control, the new phase of the operation began.
Operation Claw-2 was launched to expand the actions against terrorist hideouts.
Turkish soldiers neutralized 126 terrorists in Operation Claw-1 and 102 terrorists in Operation Claw-2.
After the threat to the border security from Hakurk was significantly eliminated, the next target of the Turkish Armed Forces was the terrorist safe haven in the Sinat-Haftanin region.
Turkish National Defense Ministry announced on Aug. 24, 2019 that Operation Claw-3 has been launched in the Sinat-Haftanin region to further ensure border security and destroy caves and shelters belonging to terrorists.
The targets were destroyed one by one as part of the air-backed operation.
The total number of terrorists neutralized in Operation Claw-3 was 102.