Spy | 2015 Kurdish

When a suspected spy was caught, the YPG would not kill them. Instead, they would feed the spy disinformation. For six months in 2015, a captured Turkish spy was forced to send reports to Ankara claiming that the YPG was not cooperating with the Syrian regime. In reality, the YPG had just signed a secret military protocol with Assad’s National Defence Forces in Hasakah.

The year 2015 was a watershed moment for the Kurdish people. Across the fractured landscape of the Middle East—from the mountains of Qandil to the streets of Kobani—the Kurds were not just fighting a war against the Islamic State (ISIS); they were fighting a shadow war of information, infiltration, and betrayal. For intelligence agencies in Washington, Moscow, Ankara, and Tehran, the keyword for 2015 was “Kurdish leverage.” But for the spies on the ground, the mission was simpler: infiltrate the secular Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its militant wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG). Spy 2015 Kurdish

This article dives deep into the espionage networks that targeted Kurdish autonomy in 2015, revealing how the "Spy" became the most dangerous weapon in the Syrian and Iraqi theater. To understand the spy mania of 2015, one must understand the map. By mid-2015, ISIS controlled nearly 50% of Syria. The Iraqi army had collapsed in Mosul. The only force on the ground consistently pushing back the Caliphate was the YPG and the Peshmerga. When a suspected spy was caught, the YPG would not kill them

In late spring 2015, the YPG’s counter-intelligence unit, the Asayish , arrested a top logistics officer in Qamishli. According to decoded documents later leaked to Middle East Eye , the officer had been a sleeper agent for MIT since 2012. In 2015 alone, he had provided Ankara with the exact locations of YPG weapons caches smuggled via US airstrips. In reality, the YPG had just signed a

Thus, 2015 became the year of the triple-agent. Spies who claimed loyalty to the Kurdish cause were often paid informants for Ankara, Baghdad, or even the ISIS intelligence wing, Amniyat . The most aggressive espionage campaign against the Kurds in 2015 was run by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT). Following the Kobani siege (September 2014 – January 2015), Turkey realized it could not defeat the YPG militarily without breaking its NATO alliance. So, they turned to human intelligence (HUMINT).

Known as Abu Hajar al-Kurdi , the spy had exploited the YPG’s desperate need for manpower in 2015. With borders porous, the YPG had been accepting volunteers with minimal vetting. Abu Hajar rose through the ranks quickly because he spoke fluent Kurmanji and had fought against ISIS in 2014—a lie. In reality, he had been trained by ISIS’s Emniyat in Raqqa as a "sleeping agent." His mission? To map out the YPG’s checkpoint rotations for a future offensive. When he was caught, YPG intelligence found a phone containing photos of the Asayish headquarters in Kobani.