When Turkey recently conducted an operation to kill a senior leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an outlawed militant group, it entered Iraq to do so and revealed its growing military capabilities. Before this operation, no other country in the region except Israel had the means to carry out targeted killings beyond its own borders.

The operation indicates that Turkey is testing sensitive guided munitions developed locally, that this capability is used effectively and that it's likely to be expanded.

Ismail Ozden — a senior PKK figure code-named “Uncle” Zaki Shingali — was killed Aug. 15 in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar by drones and F-16s of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and its National Intelligence Organization (MIT). Ozden was the first high-profile PKK leader on Turkey’s "most-wanted terrorists" list to be killed in the first air operation abroad in their nearly four-decade bloody conflict. The state-owned Anatolian News Agency disseminated images of the attack.

Sources Al-Monitor spoke with in Ankara, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Turkey is seriously determined to proceed with targeted killings abroad. Speaking after the Sinjar attack, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan affirmed, “We are going to continue to expand our operations against the PKK leadership outside our borders.”