Islamic Great Eastern Raiders Front -- Ally
Kurdish Patriotic Union -- Splinter Group (Suspected)
Kurdistan Freedom Hawks -- Splinter Group (Suspected)
People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan (ARGK) -- Faction

KADEK, KHK, Kongra-Gel (KGK), Kongreya Azadi u Demokrasiya Kurdistan, Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress, Kurdistan People's Conference, The People&#8217;s Congress of Kurdistan

The PKK's largest funding sources are drug smuggling and extortion.  The group also receives funding through charities, commercial establishments, and remittances from Europe. Syria, Iran, and Iraq have provided some aid to the PKK

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is a leftist Kurdish nationalist organization.  The PKK was founded in 1974 by a group of Turkish students of ethnic Kurdish descent who were active in communist circles within Turkey.  The group, led by Abdullah Ocalan, operated informally until 1978, when it formalized its agenda.  Influenced heavily by Maoist doctrine, the PKK's goal was to incite a revolution that would free the Kurdish people and establish an independent Kurdish state.  When it was founded, the group was violently opposed to the Turkish government, believing that a Kurdish state could only be established if the oppressive and colonialist Turkish government was defeated. <p><p>During the early 1980s, the group focused its attention on consolidating its resources and powerbase.  In 1980, prior to the military coup in Turkey, the PKK fled Turkey and established training camps in the Bekaa valley, part of Syrian-controlled Lebanon.  By 1984, the PKK had initiated its first armed attacks in the Anatolia regions of Turkey.  The PKK targeted Turkish government facilities and personnel in Anatolia and frequently attacked Kurdish civilians who "collaborated" with the Turkish government.  Some reports claim that the PKK killed over 30,000 civilians within Turkey during the mid-80s.  In the late 1980s and early 1990s, in an effort to win increased support from the Kurdish peasantry, the PKK altered its leftist secular ideology to better accommodate and accept Islamic beliefs.  The group also abandoned its previous strategy of attacking Kurdish civilians, focusing instead on government and tourist targets.