The bomb-laden car was seized on Jan. 21 and departed from Manbij located on the western banks of the Euphrates River, according to a Turkish General Staff statement. The army said the vehicle's driver and the terrorist who planned to detonate the bomb, as part of Turkish-backed Operation Euphrates Shield. The terrorists confessed they had taken instruction to carry out the suicide attack from terrorist leaders of PKK/PYD.
Hussein al-Hamad, one of the terrorists, said he was tasked to bring the vehicle to Jarablus from Manbij and took the instruction of detonating it while Turkish military convoy passed by. Hamad said the instruction was given by terrorists named "Dindar" and "Firat". The driver Mohamed Rahim, a Jarabulus resident, said: "We wanted to detonate the vehicle around Jarabulus while Turkish convoy was passing by."
While the PKK is recognized as terrorist group by Turkey, the EU, and the U.S., the PYD -- its Syrian offshoot -- is not. The U.S., in particular, has praised the PYD’s armed wing, the YPG, as a “reliable partner” in Syria.
The PKK resumed its decades-old armed campaign in July 2015. Over 1,100 people, including over 800 security personnel and over 300 civilians, have lost their lives in PKK attacks since then. More than 4,000 security personnel and over 2,000 civilians have also been injured.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.
Operation Euphrates Shield began in late August to tighten border security, eliminate the terror threat along Turkish borders, and support opposition forces in Syria. The Free Syrian Army is backed by Turkish artillery and jets as a part of the operation.