President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed that Turkish forces had killed a top Syrian Kurdish commander during an offensive conducted in neighboring Iraq.
In an operation dubbed ‘claw lighting’, Turkish forces launched a new ground and air offensive against the Islamist militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
According to President Erdogan, the military push had eliminated a Syrian-born “militant” who used the nom de guerre Sofi Nurettin. Further open sources reports indicate that Nurettin had served as the PKK’s top military commander in Syria. Nurettin was killed during the operation carried out in northern Iraq, Erdogan said in televised remarks.
The PKK listed as a terrorist group by Ankara as well by international community. The militant group has been using Iraq’s northern mountains as a launching pad in its decades-long insurgency against Turkey.
The Turkish Defense Forces regularly conducts cross-border operations and air raids against PKK dens and positions in northern Iraq.
