Operation Nomad Shadow was an unreported program established by the US and Turkey in 2007 to share intelligence on the PKK. Armed drones flew from the Incirlik base close to the southern Turkish city of Adana, across the border and over the mountains of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region - where the PKK is headquartered. Gathered information was fed to an intelligence unit called Fusion Cell, manned by American and Turkish personnel to use against the Kurdish guerrilla group.
US officials who wanted to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the topic told Reuters that Washington has indefinitely suspended the unreported program.
“We have supported Turkey in their fight against the PKK in many ways for decades. As a matter of policy, we do not provide details on operational matters,” a Pentagon spokeswoman told Reuters.
“This [suspension of intelligence sharing] makes the anti-PKK campaign more difficult and more costly for Turkey,” one of the four US officials told Reuters.
In the first four years of the operation, drones were flown from within Iraq and from Gulf states. US Air Force drone launches were relocated to Incirlik in 2011, coinciding with the US withdrawal from Iraq that same year. The US drones beamed high resolution images to Turkish forces pursuing PKK guerrillas moving across the Iraq-Turkey border.
The PKK has been engaged in a four decade conflict with the Turkish state for greater Kurdish cultural and political rights, a conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people. Both the US and Turkey recognize the group as a terrorist organization.
US drones identified a group of Kurdish smugglers in 2011 and fed the information to the Turkish side. Turkish forces misidentified the group as PKK guerrillas and struck the group, killing 34, mostly teenage smugglers. The massacre led to major protests in Kurdish cities in southeast Turkey.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that American operators had alerted the Turkish military of the group’s movements when a Predator drone spotted the suspicious caravan. Rather than ask for closer inspection, Turkish officials ordered the drone to leave and launched the attack soon after, WSJ reported. Turkey’s leaders denied the claims made by the report, saying they decided to attack based on their own intelligence.
A Turkish official downplayed the end of Operation Nomad Shadow cooperation, saying Ankara has proven itself capable of gathering the information it needs.
“In recent years, Turkey has not been struggling to obtain the information it needs through drones it produces itself,” the Turkish official told Reuters, referring to Turkey’s own domestically produced Bayraktar drones.
“However, as an ally the steps taken on this issue do not contribute to ties between the two countries,” the official added.
Turkey launched its incursion into northern Syria on October 9 last year, following a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Turkish counterpart Recep Teyyip Erdogan in which the US President seemed to greenlight a Turkish incursion into Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria.
Turkey had long threatened to invade parts of northern Syria controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), accusing their backbone, the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) of being the Syrian offshoot of the PKK.
The operation was strongly criticized by its European allies and NATO, of which Turkey is a member state.
The US-backed SDF was a critical US ally in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria. Despite the decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria acting as a green light for Turkey’s invasion, Washington expressed opposition to the Turkish offensive and warned of its fallout.
Turkey has recently assassinated a number of senior leaders from the PKK and associated groups.
Turkish drones struck deep into the Kurdistan Region’s territory on October 15, killing two senior members of the Kurdistan Community Group (KCK) – an umbrella organisation under which the PKK falls.
High-profile KCK member Diyar Ghareeb was killed in a Turkish drone strike on July 5, 2019. On March 21, Turkey also assassinated KCK spokesperson Serhat Armanos Varto alongside four PKK members.
