Urbanization and asymmetric military combating: PKK terrorist organization's "Urban warfare" attempt in Silopi and counterterrorism of Turkish Armed Forces

In this thesis, as a result of the impact of urbanization on the phenomenon of war, the increasing importance of asymmetric military struggles and the effect of urbanization on the strategy, methods and tactics of the PKK terrorist organization are examined. At the beginning of the last century, the proportion of urban population, which was 16% in the world, reached to 55% in 2018, in other words, the population of rural areas decreased and people were directed towards cities. For this reason, asymmetric organizations of today has lost their capacity to reach to the target with the struggle based on the rural area, which was the main strategy of the succesfull guerrilla movement's strategy in the 20th century. The rapid development of urbanization and its effects has created two different results for the PKK terrorist organization. First, PKK lost the geographical environment for its initial strategy which was a "long-term armed revolutionary struggle" or "people's war" based on rural area. The second, PKK shifted its struggle to the cities parallel to the political sphere. In the upcoming period, regarding PKK it is expected to have a proportional decrease in rural activities and a linear increase in urban activities. In the study, an explanatory method was followed based on quantitative and qualitative data; academic writing and terrorist organization resources were utilized, and a case study was conducted in Silopi District.