Turkey neutralizes 73 wanted PKK terrorists in 2018

Over the course of 2018, Turkish security forces have neutralized 73 top YPG/PKK/KCK terrorists in operations at home and abroad, according to an Anadolu Agency analysis of official data.

Turkish authorities often use the word "neutralized" in their statements to imply the terrorists in question either surrendered of were killed or captured.

According to Turkish security forces' data on counter-terror operations carried out from Jan. 1 to Nov.17, among the 73 neutralized were 13 on the top, red category of the Interior Ministry's most wanted list.

In descending order of priority on the color-coded most wanted list, of the other terrorists neutralized, five were in the blue category, six in the green, eight in the orange, and 41 in the grey category.

Reward money for those terrorists totaled almost 83 million Turkish lira ($15 million).

Some senior terrorists neutralized

On June 28, Sefer Acar, codenamed "Welat Gever," was neutralized during an operation in the eastern Bitlis province.

Acar, in the red category, carried out a terrorist attack on Turkish gendarmes during an operation in northern Iraq two decades ago. In the 1998 attack, a Sikorsky helicopter was shot down, martyring 15 soldiers.

On Aug. 15, a senior PKK/KCK figure in Iraq's northern Sinjar province, Ismail Ozden, codenamed Mam Zeki Sengali, was neutralized in a joint operation by the Turkish Armed Forces and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT).

Ozden, 66, was reportedly the first PKK/KCK terrorist in the red category to be neutralized by Turkey in an operation abroad.

Ibrahim Coban, codenamed "Atakan Mahir" in the red category, was the top PKK terrorist in the Dersim region for the past 25 years. He was killed on Aug. 11 in the eastern Tunceli province.

Baris Oner, codenamed "Turk Tarik," another PKK terrorist in the red category, was neutralized on Aug. 19.

Oner carried out several terrorist attacks in 2016 and 2018 in the Black Sea province of Giresun. In 2016 he martyred a sergeant and attacked a gendarmerie building in Giresun with a rocket launcher. On July 9, Oner martyred another sergeant in a rural area in Giresun.

On July 15, Mehmet Yakisir, codenamed "Zeynel," the top PKK terrorist in the Black Sea region, was also neutralized.

Yakisir, who was in the red category of Turkey’s wanted list, had killed 15-year-old Eren Bulbul last August in Macka district of Trabzon province.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women and children.