Wednesday marked two years since a PKK terrorist attack claimed six lives in a bustling street in the heart of Istanbul.
On a busy afternoon on Nov. 13, 2023, a PKK member planted an explosive device on Istiklal Street shortly before a blast ripped through the street packed with shoppers and tourists, killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, and injuring 99 others.
Türkiye’s cultural and economic hub has been targeted several times by terrorist groups like the PKK and Daesh in the past decade, but the bomb attack was the first in long years during which many attempts had been thwarted.
Authorities captured the perpetrator, Ahlam Albashir, hours after the attack, along with at least 59 other suspects charged with aiding and abetting her.
Prosecutors found the bomb attack was ordered and orchestrated by senior leaders of the PKK, including Cemil Bayık, Sabri Ok and Ferhat Abdi Şahin.
Albashir, a Syrian national born in 1999, confessed to infiltrating Türkiye from Syria, where the PKK’s Syrian wing YPG is active. She was accommodated at a “safe house” of the terrorist group in Istanbul before running a reconnaissance mission before the attack.
During the trial, the defendant said she regretted her actions and claimed that she was unaware that a bag she was asked to carry contained explosives. “They (other PKK-linked suspects) asked me to take photos on the street,” she said.
An Istanbul court in April 2024 handed Albashir seven instances of aggravated life imprisonment and another 1,794 years in prison for her role in the terror attack. She had been charged with homicide as well as “disrupting state’s unity and integrity.”
Albashir said she had nothing to say about the charges and accepted any punishment for the explosion and the deceased.
The court also sentenced 14 other defendants accused of aiding and abetting Albashir to prison terms varying between four years to 1,035 years, while 12 defendants were acquitted.
One of the masterminds of the Istiklal attack, Halil Menci, was killed in a pinpoint National Intelligence Organization (MIT) operation in Qamishli in northern Syria on Feb. 22, 2023.
Sources said Menci had been in close contact with other PKK/YPG terrorists and was protected by the terrorist group in the region.
Qamishli is one of the places controlled by the terrorist group. Turkish intelligence personnel have been running surveillance on Menci for a while.
In her questioning, Albashir confirmed entering Türkiye illegally from Afrin and receiving intelligence training from the PKK/YPG.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
After the attack, Türkiye launched aerial operations against the terrorist group in Syria and Iraq.
At the time, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan implied that a ground operation to clear Syria’s north of terrorist groups threatening Türkiye was also on the table. PKK/YPG terrorists responded to Turkish operations by firing rockets at a Turkish town on the border with Syria, killing two people, including a young boy and a teacher.
Strikes on the terrorist group have only intensified in the past two years.
The PKK mounted another attack in Ankara last month, as two of its members attempted to raid the headquarters of the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), killing five and injuring 22 others.
The attack struck days after Devlet Bahçeli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), ally to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), made an unprecedented proposal that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan could be granted parole on the condition that he renounce violence and dissolve the PKK.
Öcalan has been in solitary confinement on a prison island near Istanbul since his capture in Kenya in 1999.
Turkish officials, including Erdoğan, have touted it as a “historic window of opportunity” to end PKK terrorism for good.
Erdoğan has said another cross-border offensive against the PKK/YPG in northern Syria is possible to eradicate the group at its roots.