Pro-terrorist accounts post fake social media content

By Enes Canli

ANKARA (AA) - Since the beginning of Turkey's anti-terror operation in northern Syria, PKK/YPG supporters have stepped up social media smear campaigns, posting fake photographs, videos and information.

Turkey on Oct. 9 launched Operation Peace Spring to eliminate terrorists from northern Syria in order to secure Turkey’s borders, aid in the safe return of Syrian refugees, and ensure Syria’s territorial integrity.

Since then, PKK/YPG terrorists have been circulating misleading and irrelevant images in a bid to manipulate global public opinion against Turkey's counterterrorism efforts.

A photo -- posted by a pro-PKK/YPG social media account -- showing the bodies of dead children supposedly in Ras al-Ayn under Turkey's Operation Peace Spring, was found to have been taken in Yemen in 2016.

Another pro-PKK/YPG account published a photo of a dead mother and her child amid debris, which was taken in 2016 in Syria to criticize U.S. President Donald Trump.

A photo of the dead body of a baby under debris from a building destroyed by regime forces in Syria in 2012 was published by a separate PKK/YPG manipulator account that falsely alleged it happened under Turkey's operation.

PKK/YPG manipulators used another photo of a dead baby, denouncing a decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull troops from northern Syria. In reality, the photo was taken during civil defense activities by White Helmets in Syria in November 2018.

Another manipulative PKK/YPG account posted a photo of a dead child with severe facial wounds, originally published by another account in November 2017.

- Turkey's Operation Peace Spring

Turkey on Oct. 9 launched Operation Peace Spring to eliminate terrorists from northern Syria in order to secure Turkey’s borders, aid in the safe return of Syrian refugees, and ensure Syria’s territorial integrity.

Ankara wants to clear northern Syria east of the Euphrates River of the terrorist PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the PYD/YPG.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the European Union -- has been responsible for deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.

* Writing by Fahri Aksut