A Bayraktar Akıncı combat drone. Source: the Turkish Ministry of National Defense.
The Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) was behind a recent drone strike on northern Syria that killed a field commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Turkish security sources revealed to the Anadolu Agency on April 30.
The drone strike hit the vehicle of the commander, identified as Sabri Abdullah, on April 25 near the town of Kobane in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo, a known stronghold of the SDF.
The unnamed Turkish security sources claimed that Abdullah was a senior member of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the core faction of the SDF and the alleged Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). According to the sources, ordered attacks on Turkish cities in the past.
Abdullah, who was also known by his nom de guerre “Mazloum Doghan,” barely survived an assassination attempt by the MIT in 2018. Back then, the YPG claimed he was killed.
This was the second SDF commander to be assassinated by the MIT this month. A commander Mehmet Sari, who was also known as “Baran Kurtay,” was killed in a drone strike orchestrated by the intelligence organization near the town of al-Qamishli in the northern al-Hasakah countryside on April 14. Turkish security sources claim that he was a senior member of the YPG and the PKK.
Turkey has escalated its attacks against Kurdish forces not only in Syria, but also in neighboring Iraq. On April 7, a drone strike hit the convoy of the SDF’s Commander-in-Chief, Ferhat Abdi Şahin, in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. Şahin, who is more known by his nom de guerre Mazloum Abdi, survived the attack, which didn’t result in any losses. Western officials blamed the assassination attempt on Ankara.
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