ANKARA: The Turkish intelligence service “neutralized” a senior terrorist in northern Syria over his alleged links to the MLKP, a far-left terror group, security sources said on Friday.
Zeki Gurbuz, codenamed Ahmet Sores, was targeted in an operation by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization in Syria’s Al-Hasakah province, said the sources on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
The terrorist was behind the 2022 rocket attack on the Turkish security forces on the border with Syria, and the 2022 attack on the vehicle carrying the prison guards in the northwestern Bursa province, the sources said.
He became the so-called leader of the terror group in Türkiye in 2008 after he operated for many years as the so-called leader of FESK, the armed wing of the MLKP. Gurbuz was caught in Greece in February 2013. After rejecting Türkiye’s request to extradite the terrorist, Greece released him in April 2013. Later, Gurbuz moved from Greece to Iraq and then to Syria, where he started to be a so-called leader of the MLKP.
Gurbuz, who was earlier in charge of the so-called military wing of MLKP, started to operate as the so-called Syria leader of the terror group after Baran Serhat, codenamed Bayram Namaz, was neutralized in March 2019.
It was found that Gurbuz also managed the financial resources of the terror group and transferred money to all areas. The MLKP was founded in 1994 and was added to Türkiye’s active terror list in 2007.
The terror group is responsible for many attacks in Türkiye and northern Syria, including the 2004 bombing of a public bus in Istanbul that killed three civilians.
