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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.
Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters man a checkpoint near Tel Hamis in northeast Syria March 1, 2015. 
Kurdish forces dealt a blow to Islamic State by capturing Tel Hamis, an important town, on Friday in the latest stage of a powerful offensive in northeast Syria, a Kurdish militia spokesman said. The capture of Tel Hamis was announced by the Kurdish YPG militia and confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the country's civil war. Picture taken March 1, 2015. REUTERS
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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.”

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