Turkey pays informants to target most wanted terrorists
Al-Monitor looks into the success of Turkey's 2-year-old program that pays informants for tips that help eliminate illegal organizations operating in the country.
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Turkish security forces are crediting an informant reward system for a rise in the number of arrests of Kurdish militants in the past two years.
Just recently, at the beginning of September, forces launched a security operation north of the predominately Kurdish city of Diyarbakir. One man was killed and two were wounded in Baglan village. Locals said all three were simple villagers, but a few days later, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) announced that the man who died was one of their militants.
Now let’s go back.
In May 2016, in the Lice area, 45 miles northeast of Diyarbakir, three senior leaders of the PKK — which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union — were killed. One of them was in charge of the vast area of Erzurum, Diyarbakir, Batman, Bingol and Mus provinces. In November 2016, a local area leader of Diyarbakir was killed. In the past two years, eight senior officials of the organization have been killed in the Lice area alone.
