Türkiye targets terror group PKK/YPG's safe haven near French cement company in northern Syria

By Esref Musa and Mehmet Burak Karacaoglu

TEL ABYAD, Syria – Türkiye’s intelligence service on Sunday targeted a major haven for PKK/YPG terrorists inside a large compound where French cement company Lafarge is located in Aleppo’s Ayn-el Arab district in northern Syria, according to local sources.

Since 2015, the PKK/YPG terrorist organization used the compound as a so-called headquarters, which was close to the Lafarge cement factory. The French cement makers pleaded guilty in Oct. 2022 in the US to providing funds to terrorist outfit Daesh/ISIS in 2013-2014.

In the last three days, the National Intelligence Service (MIT) also destroyed dozens of PKK/YPG targets in Aleppo, Hasakah, and Raqqa, including major infrastructure facilities and so-called road checkpoints.

In the town of Rumeylan in Hasakah, Turkish forces airstrikes targeted the Avde oil field, as well as the terrorist organization's main structure on Ali Ferro road in al-Qameshli city, as well as the oil and natural gas facilities that were sources of funding for the PKK/YPG's terrorist operations in Kahtaniyah, Malikiyyeh, and Rumeylan.

Some of the PKK/YPG facilities targeted also served as entry and exit points for the militant outfit's tunnel network.

*Writing by Esra Tekin in Istanbul