Anatomy of a Turkish assassination fable
The scenario of a fictional Tel Hamis Brigades assassinating key Kurdish military leader Bahoz Erdal bombed badly, but revealed that Turkey's intelligence service and special forces are hunting the PKK beyond Turkey's borders.
It was all over the front pages in Turkey: "The No. 2 leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK], Fehman Huseyin [also known as Bahoz Erdal], has been killed.” Those who believed this news report were deemed "patriots," but those who questioned it were “terror supporters.” This is how the pro-government newspapers classify journalists.
The government-controlled Anatolian Agency dropped the bombshell July 9: “Khalid al-Hasekavi, the spokesman for the Tel Hamis Brigades that is fighting the Syrian regime, has disclosed that Fehman Huseyin, a senior leader of the PKK, was killed when his car was blown up. Hasekavi told [an] AA correspondent that Fehman Huseyin was targeted last night, July 8, when he was traveling from Himo to Qamishli.”
Pro-government media followed with a statement purportedly issued by the Special Operations Unit of Tel Hamis Revolutionaries Battalions. The "brigade" that the Anatolian Agency had referred to was thus suddenly downscaled to a battalion.
Even though no one questioned whether an organization called Tel Hamis Brigades even exists, or who Hasekavi is, the report made headline news. The media was flooded with boastful comments about how the PKK had received a deadly blow, how their Qandil headquarters was in turmoil and how Erdal’s assassination proved beyond a doubt the organic links between the PKK and the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party (PYD). Lack of confirmation from Turkey’s military high command did not slow down the media coverage. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan contributed, “There is some information that he was killed in Syria while he was with a team of 14 people. Work is going on to confirm the reports.”
