PKK | Operation Expected Consequences

[Jay]

OPERATION EXPECTED CONSEQUENCE
Security Classification: TOP SECRET

SITUATION REPORT

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OVERVIEW Over the past year, intensified surveillance and cross-border operations by Turkish forces have steadily constricted the maneuver space available for Kurdish fighters of the resistance. Now the expanding Turkish ground campaign has put the movement on the back foot. Global support for Turkey is at an all-time high, and the U.S.'s support for the fascist regime in Ankara has reached new heights. Yet, anti-American sentiment remains in Turkey, and the current Prime Minister faces a prolonged political crisis due to her apparent pro-Western sentiments. Sentiments not shared by the larger electorate. It has been decided by Kurdish field operatives that the way forward to put an end to the ongoing campaign against Kurdish independence is to strike at the very heart of the imperial war machine in Ankara. Last year a successful operation brought together the Iranian Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) with the Kurdistan Workers' Party. This operation will bear the fruits of that partnership to allow the successful carrying out of Operation Expected Consequences. Members of the PKK's covert action group with trusted PJAK operatives have been tasked with carrying out Operation Expected Consequences with the goal of expanding the current operation to stop the ongoing Turkish campaign in Iraq.

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BELLIGERENTS

BLUFOR	OPFOR
Kurdistan Worker's Party HPG YJA-STAR Kurdistan Free Life Party YRK	United States of America Republic of Turkey Security Forces

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ORDER OF OPERATIONS

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• Cover Operations
  • 24 Operatives

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CAMPAIGN REGISTER

Operation	Objective	Status
Phase I	Operatives are to make their way using different transportation routes to Istanbul and Ankara.	Active
Phase II	Take over the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Istanbul with distraction attacks to delay reaction time.	Active
Phase III	SECRET	Active
Phase IV	SECRET	Active

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[Jay]

RESTRICTED

Ankara, April 2009

The morning in Ankara had unfolded as it normally had. Buses climbed the sloped avenues near Kızılay, their engines straining as they wound past kiosks selling simit and tea. Government workers in pressed shirts crossed at Güvenpark, umbrellas tucked under their arms though the sky was clear.

People had walked around as they usually did, with clusters of students weaving toward the metro entrance, backpacks slung over one shoulder. Civil servants went about their day, walking briskly or waiting at crosswalks with their phones in hand.

Vendors called out from behind carts of roasted chestnuts as an elderly man shuffled past, a folded newspaper wedged beneath his arm. A dolmuş pulled to the curb, and passengers filed on one after another, disappearing toward the hills of Çankaya. Near the entrance to the park, a man and a woman stood a few feet apart, both looking down at their watches.


He glanced up first, eyes moving over the square, then back down. She did the same a moment later, adjusting the strap of her bag as she checked the time again. Neither spoke. They simply stood there, calm, watching the crowd thin and gather, waiting for something the morning hadn't yet revealed.

Elsewhere at the U.S. Embassy, a number of people were in line waiting for their appointments. Herdem Basam and Talor Arjîn were amongst those waiting. Herdem looked down at his watch before some American fellow looked over and laughed. "You're gonna be waiting here a while buddy."

Herdem looked up and responded. "Why?"

"I am a citizen and they're making me wait. You think they're gonna let you in before me?" He gave out a hearty laugh.

Talor wanted to say something but Herdem held her back. "No worries, we are in no rush."

The Embassy gates began to open as the Turkish security officials manned the exterior wall. As Herdem and Talor approached the gate they looked back...it should have happened by now Herdem thought. Just then he heard it.

A deafening blast rips through the front gate. A soft fireball consumed the guardhouse, sending glass shattering in different directions. There was a second wave, followed by shocked silence, before the screams began.

The residence gate at the base of the hill had gone from silence to smoke in under four seconds. Erhan Doğan was still turning toward the sound of the blast when the first rounds hit the guardhouse glass.

"Contact, contact, west gate!" he shouted into his collar mic, already moving, already reaching for his sidearm. Beside him, two junior officers dropped instinctively behind the concrete planters lining the drive, one of them fumbling to unclip his rifle from its sling.

Through the haze he could make out two shapes advancing through the gap where the gate had stood, black jackets, rifles held low and steady, moving with the kind of discipline that told him immediately these weren't opportunists. This had been planned.

"Lock it down! Lock the residence, now!" Erhan bellowed toward the inner checkpoint, and a young officer near the door slammed his palm against the alarm panel.

Steel barriers began rising from underneath the ground as alarms blaired around the complex. A round cracked off the planter inches from his shoulder, spraying concrete dust across his cheek. He returned fire without fully aiming, forcing the nearest gunman to peel back toward the shattered gatehouse for cover. Beside him, Officer Kaya finally got his rifle up and loosed three rounds down the drive.

"Where's the second team?!" Erhan shouted.

"Ninety seconds out, they're coming from the eastern checkpoint..."

"Tell them to hurry the fuck up." Erhan shouted laying down another wave of surpressive fire.

The second gunman broke from cover and sprinted along the treeline bordering the gate that had just been blown through, firing in short bursts toward the residence's main entrance, where two more guards had taken position behind an overturned reception desk dragged into the doorway.

Glass rained down from an upper window as a round went wide and high. Erhan keyed his mic again, voice tight. "All units, all units, the Prime Minister is in the east wing, repeat, east wing, get the secondary detail moving her to the shelter now."

Inside, the Prime Minister's chief of security and the rest of the detial were rushing her out of the study, past startled aides frozen mid-step in the hallway, down the service stairs toward the reinforced room beneath the residence.

Outside, the gunman near the gatehouse popped up again, and this time Erhan was ready. He put two rounds into the frame of the gate beside the man's head, driving him back down, buying Kaya the half-second he needed to reposition. The wail of approaching sirens climbed over the gunfire now, Ankara police, and behind them, the unmistakable heavier thrum of a response vehicle.

"East gate is breached, I say again, east gate breached, all available units converge on the residence..."

A grenade, or something like one, arced from behind the gatehouse and landed short of the drive, detonating against the stone wall in a burst of white smoke and flying grit. Erhan felt the heat of it against his face and went down hard behind the planter, ears ringing, vision swimming for half a second before training pulled him back up onto one knee, weapon still raised.

Through the smoke he saw the second team arriving at last, four officers fanning out along the perimeter wall, rifles up, moving in pairs toward the gatehouse.

"Hold your position, do not let them push past the drive," Erhan called out his voice hoarse now.

Just then Erhan saw one of the gunmen emerge to take a shot at the officers from the eastern gatehouse. Raising his service weapon he put two rounds into the chest of the man who slumped over and fell. The fighting lasted another minute or two before officer Hayri raised her rifle and put half of her mag into the body of the second gunmen who slumped over and fell.

They waited a moment before officers Bugra and Ozakar walked over to check that the two gunmen were dead. Nobody approached too close to the body in case there was a deadman switch in them. Erhan leaned into his collar radio and told his superiors. "Two gunmen at East Gate neutralized."

Erhan let out a relieved sigh, then heard a distant explosion and turned instinctively toward the residence, fearing someone had gotten in. Sirens wailed closer, converging on the Prime Minister's residence. But back at the U.S. Embassy compound, the real attack was just beginning.

​

Officers Çağla, Anar, and İnan of the Ankara Metropolitan Police Diplomatic Unit and the Gendarmerie Diplomatic Security Command manned their post near the American Embassy, watching as people walked in and out throughout the morning.

Çağla nudged Anar, grinning. "Three weeks. Three weeks and I'm done being on my feet all day for this."

Anar laughed. "You say that like the wedding isn't gonna have you on your feet all night instead."

İnan didn't join in. She just hugged her rifle a little tighter against her chest, eyes on the street. She'd asked for a deployment in the south, Gendarmerie postings near the border, somewhere that felt like it mattered. Instead she'd gotten Ankara, standing outside a gate all day watching diplomats, expats, and everything inbetween come and go. It ate at her more than she let on.

A soft thud rolled in from somewhere behind them.

Çağla turned. "Thunder?"

"Supposed to rain today," Anar said, shrugging.

They kept talking, but a moment later their radios crackled to life, voices overlapping, urgent. Attack on the Prime Minister's residence. All units, stand by. Somewhere to the east, sirens rose, and above them the low beat of helicopter blades.

"That's not thunder," İnan said quietly.

Çağla's smile faded. "You think it's connected to..."

She didn't finish. A truck was coming, fast, swinging wide off the road and straight for the embassy gate. Çağla threw herself sideways, hitting her head hard on the pavement as the truck tore past where she'd been standing. İnan spun toward the sound of it and watched the truck plow into the guardpost, steel folding, concrete shearing away as it punched a hole clean through the wall.

"ÇAĞLA, MOVE!" İnan screamed.

Car doors were already opening along the curb. Ten, maybe more, men and women stepping out in a line, rifles coming up, opening fire on the embassy guards and on the three of them without hesitation.

İnan grabbed Çağla by the collar and hauled her behind a concrete barrier as rounds chewed into the stone above their heads. Çağla was frozen, eyes wide, hands shaking around her rifle like she'd forgotten how to use it.

"Çağla, Çağla, look at me!" İnan shook her once, hard. "Fire your weapon! FIRE YOUR WEAPON, NOW!"

Anar was already up on one knee beside them, returning fire toward the breach, teeth gritted. "Anar to command, the Embassy, they're hitting the Embassy, we need everyone, NOW" She keyed her radio between bursts, voice cracking with the effort of staying steady. "Multiple shooters, breach at the main gate, they're pushing inside!"

The gunmen barely broke stride. Bullets sparked off the barrier and the guardhouse around them, but the men kept moving, stepping over their own suppressive fire, driving deeper through the smoking gap in the wall toward the embassy compound beyond.

Çağla finally raised her rifle, hands still trembling, and fired, wide at first, then steadier as she saw dozens of civilans running in different directions, İnan's voice still in her ear telling her where to aim, telling her to breathe, telling her they were not going to die behind this wall.

The gunmen pushed through, moving fast. Turkish units outside scrambled toward the compound, but heavy suppressive fire from the breach point kept them pinned at the perimeter, unable to close the distance.

Inside, the Kurdish commandos split into teams, sweeping the halls room by room. Anyone they found was herded at gunpoint toward the consular section. Just the barrel of a rifle and a hand gesturing move.

Herdem felt the muzzle press briefly into his shoulder blade. "Yürü," the gunman barked. Walk.

He kept his hand laced with Talor's, pulling her along as they were pushed into a wide waiting room already filling with people, Turks, Americans, a cluster of embassy staff still in their lanyards. Someone was crying quietly near the back wall. No one was talking above a whisper.

"Sit. Everyone, sit down. Hands where we can see them." The gunman's English was accented but clear. A second gunman moved along the windows, yanking blinds shut one by one, while a third dragged a filing cabinet in front of the main door.

Around them, more people were pushed in every few minutes, stragglers found hiding in bathrooms, in supply closets, under desks. Each time the door opened, the room went rigid, everyone's eyes flicking up and then quickly back down, worried this was the end for them.

Once the last of them had been gathered, one of the gunmen stepped to the center of the room and looked around slowly. He said something low to another man near the door, who nodded and moved to take position at the window, rifle angled toward the courtyard outside.

​

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Istanbul, April 2009

The morning in Istanbul had unfolded as it normally had. Ferries in the bay floated through the Bosphorus, their horns low as they made port to unload people and cargo. Street trams inched past shuttered storefronts with their doors already half-open.

People had walked around as they usually did, with a number of tourist groups trekking through the streets observing many different historical sites of the once mighty Ottoman Empire. Turks went about their day, walking around or commuting to work.

Students with earphones tucked into hoodies hunched beside older women lugging floral suitcases as a bus came by. One by one they all hopped onto the bus and drove away to their terminal. Across the street near the American consulate, a woman in her twenties paused to adjust her scarf. She looked around, eyes scanning the crowd, calm as she stepped forward.

She looked at her watch and then back up to walk around having left her bag near a house. Then a deafening blast ripped through. A massive fireball consumed the benches, sending glass shattering in different directions. There was a second wave, followed by shocked silence, before the screams began.

"Secure the perimeter!" barked Sergeant Murat Demir. He motioned to his team as he drew his service pistol. They fanned out swiftly.

Just then he saw a number of people rushing toward them. Thinking they were civilians, he waved them over. A round punched through his chest, sending him backward onto the pavement.

Officers Zeynep and Akkerman rushed to grab their superior and drag him back behind a parked car as officers Aytek and Burcu raised their rifles and returned fire.

"Contact, contact, this is Istanbul consulate requesting help!" Aytek shouted into his collar mic, squeezing off successive shots at the gunmen rushing toward them.

Zeynep pressed both hands against Murat's chest, trying to stop the blood pulsing out between her fingers. Akkerman knelt beside her, hands hovering, unsure where to press, what to do. Murat's eyes were open but unfocused, his breath coming in short, wet gasps that slowed, then slowed again.

"Murat...Murat, stay with me..." Zeynep's voice cracked.

Akkerman leaned in close, searching for a pulse at his neck, for any rise of his chest. Nothing. He looked up at Aytek, and something in his face already had the answer before he said it. "He's not breathing. He's gone."

Aytek's jaw tightened, but there was no time to grieve. He grabbed Akkerman by the arm and hauled him upright. "LEAVE HIM. FIRE BACK. NOW."

Akkerman stared at his hands, Murat's blood still wet on them, frozen. Aytek shoved a rifle into his arms. "FIRE YOUR WEAPON, DAMN IT."

Through the haze, Zeynep could make out two shapes advancing on their position. She raised her rifle and fired in short bursts, one man dropped and didn't move, the second staggered and pulled back behind a stone pillar, out of her line of sight.

Of the eight gunmen pressing the attack, one was already down. The four remaining officers held their position and kept firing.

Then a grenade landed a few feet from Zeynep. She threw herself sideways behind a low wall on instinct, ears ringing as it detonated. Akkerman, still catching up, wasn't fast enough, the blast threw him backward and he hit the ground hard and didn't get up. Aytek turned to check on him and saw his lifeless body.

He looked over to see Burcu pinned down, gunmen closing from two directions. Aytek laid down covering fire as Zeynep pushed herself up, head still ringing, vision swimming back into focus. She'd barely gotten to a knee when a round slammed into her back plate and dropped her flat.

"ZEYNEP!" Aytek shouted. He kept firing for a moment.

Burcu ducked in and out of cover, snapping off shots between breaths, and managed to put down a second gunman before a round cracked past her ear. She keyed her radio, screaming for backup, but the response crackled back too slow, too far. She fired again, then a round caught her square in the face, and she dropped where she stood.

Aytek roared and turned his rifle on the now-exposed gunmen who'd pushed forward to the consulate gate, cutting down two of them before he had to stop and reload, hands shaking as he thumbed a fresh magazine home.

Behind him, he heard movement, seeing Zeynep, cursing under her breath, hauling herself upright against the car. The plate had taken the bullet. She snatched her rifle back up and dropped in beside Aytek, breathing hard.

"How many left," she said.

"Three. Maybe four."

They didn't get time to count. Marines from the consulate reached the gate, weapons up, pushing into the fight alongside them, and one went down almost immediately, caught in a crossfire from the last defenders behind an overturned kiosk. The narrow slope leading up to the consulate worked in their favor, a natural chokepoint that funneled the remaining gunmen into a killing lane. Police reinforcements arrived minutes later, sealing the street from both ends.

By the time it was over, all eight gunmen lay dead. Aytek sat back against the car beside Zeynep, chest heaving, and didn't say anything at all.

Odinson