Ankara has many questions to answer over the deaths of 13 captives at the hands of Turkish Kurdish militants in a mountainous cave in northern Iraq, but information obtained by Al-Monitor suggests that a potentially momentous Turkish operation might have gone awry at the last minute.

On Feb. 12, Turkey woke up to the news that three officers from the Turkish special forces had been killed and several wounded in the Gara region of northern Iraq, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Turkish border. For more than three decades, the mountainous area has served as a major logistical and training base for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought Ankara since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by much of the international community.

On Feb. 14, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that the PKK executed 13 unarmed Turkish citizens held captive in a cave in Gara. Officials identified the victims as soldiers, policemen and civilians, whom the PKK had abducted from 2015 through 2017. Two operatives of the National Intelligence Organization were allegedly among the slain captives. All but one were shot in the head as a Turkish military operation was underway in the area, Akar said, adding that 53 PKK militants were killed.

The southern outskirts of Gara Mountain were already the scene of armed tensions between the PKK and Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) peshmerga forces. Peshmerga forces have struggled to control the area because of the rough terrain, and Turkey’s frequent cross-border incursions in pursuit of the PKK have rarely extended to Gara due to limited means of supply by land. For Turkey, the cleansing and long-term control of the area would require a big military buildup, the support of local peshmerga and strong supply capabilities.