A recent knife attack carried out by Hasan Saklanan, a 34-year-old radical Turkish imam employed by the government, on an Israeli border police officer in Jerusalem on April 30 serves as a stark reminder of Turkey’s alarming transformation into a hotbed of extremism under the Islamist governance of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Saklanan is the third Turkish national to have traveled to countries neighboring Israel to participate in jihadist campaigns against the nation since October 7, 2023, when Hamas conducted a deadly attack in southern Israel, resulting in the death of approximately 1,200 people and the taking of some 250 hostages.
Two other Turkish nationals, Yakup Erdal and Seyfullah Bilal Öztürk, who had joined Hamas’s military wing, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on November 21, 2023. All three individuals were associated with Turkey’s Hizbullah network, a predominantly Kurdish group backed by the Iran-based Quds Force, which has been aligned with the Erdogan government since 2014. They were all killed.
It appears that Saklanan, hailing from Şanlıurfa, located near Turkey’s border with Syria, responded to a public call for a global jihad against Israel made by the supreme religious leader of Turkey’s Hizbullah, Edip Gümüş, who issued a religious edict on October 13, 2023 urging jihad.
“Hurry to jihad. Come to jihad and come to salvation. Especially those of you who are neighbors and close to the lands of Palestine, do not leave our Gazan brothers alone. Render the borders meaningless, pour in and join your Palestinian jihadist brothers,” he said in a statement carried by the Ilkha news agency, Hizbullah’s media arm in Turkey.
Gümüş also emphasized that all Muslims worldwide must find a means to contribute to the jihadist cause. Gümüş, a 65-year-old Kurd, received training from Iranian intelligence and has forged an alliance with President Erdogan in the last decade. He has not only met with Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ali Khamenei, but has also worked closely with Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s senior advisor.
“Fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the mujahideen against the Zionist enemy. Those who have no opportunity to fight, those in conditions that make it difficult to fight, should strive to create opportunities and conditions [for combat],” he added. “Be like the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and strike fear into their [Jews] hearts,” Gümüş said.
A trip by Saklanan to Jordan under the pretext of tourism and his subsequent crossing of the border and going to Jerusalem precisely fit the pattern recommended by the Hizbullah leader. Saklanan’s brother, Ramazan, told local media that Hasan was planning to carry out a jihadist attack and had concealed his true intentions under the guise of sightseeing in Jerusalem. He mentioned that family members, including their mother, were unaware of his true intentions but acknowledged that they were proud of him.
Saklanan was hailed as a hero and martyr by Turkey’s Hizbullah, an entity separate from Lebanon’s Hezbollah. However, both share the same commitment to destroying Israel and are backed by Iran. Rallies were held across Turkey to honor Saklanan’s memory by Hizbullah’s political arm, HÜDA-PAR, a fundamentalist political party that is in an official alliance with President Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Enver Kılıçarslan, a senior figure in Hizbullah, confirmed that Saklanan complied with the religious order issued by Gümüş. He said the slain imam had fulfilled his Sharia obligation. Kılıçarslan, who was trained in Iran in 1987, had been convicted in a terrorism case in Turkey and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in February 2002. The Erdogan government assisted him in escaping his legal troubles.
Media outlets owned and/or controlled by the Erdogan government portrayed Saklanan as a victim and hailed his attack on the Israeli police. Sabah, a newspaper owned by President Erdogan’s family, described him as a martyr who was killed by Zionist occupiers.
Saklanan had been employed by the Turkish government’s religious arm, the Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet), since July 2018. The Diyanet, a vast organization that oversees approximately 90,000 mosques in Turkey and abroad, with a staff of some 140,000 imams, has been transformed into a proselytizing arm of political Islam akin to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood under the 22-year rule of the Erdogan government.
In 2016 Erdogan arbitrarily and summarily purged well over 3,000 imams from the Diyanet who were critical of his government on a range of issues, from corruption to the government’s support for armed and radical jihadist organizations. The vacancies were filled by individuals from various religious groups, including Hizbullah, many of whom harbor radical views. Hizbullah imams, who were trained in unofficial religious madrasas, were placed on the government payroll under the Diyanet through a fast-track employment process supported by the Erdogan government.
Saklanan is one of those who entered public service as an imam through this process. Initially hired on a contract basis, he was later granted a permanent position as an imam. He began his job at a mosque in the village of Acıkuyu, located in the Şereflikoçhisar district of Ankara province. On October 15, 2021 the Diyanet reassigned him to another mosque in Çataluk, located in the Kepez district of Şanlıurfa, his home province. Kepez has traditionally been a stronghold of Erdogan’s AKP.
When he attacked an Israeli border police officer near Herod’s Gate on April 30, Saklanan was visiting Jerusalem’s Old City as part of a tour organized by the Diyanet. Also on the same tour were Diyanet president Ali Erbaş’s daughter, Merve Sefa Likoğlu, who is a preacher, and her husband, Mufti Muhammet Likoğlu, both of whom are on the Turkish government’s payroll.
Since 2017 the Erdogan government has been urging Turks to visit Jerusalem to show their support for Palestine, especially Hamas, with which President Erdogan has cultivated close ties over the years. Turkish government agencies and pro-government NGOs have been actively organizing tours there.
In a speech delivered in July 2017, Erdogan said Muslims are obligated by their faith to protect Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He called on Turks and Muslims to visit these places as a sign of endorsement for Palestine and to send aid.
“If they [Israeli troops] are defiling it [Al-Aqsa] with their boots and shedding Muslim blood, the reason is our failure to sufficiently protect Jerusalem. Let’s all come together and protect Jerusalem,” he said.
President Erdogan and other Turkish government officials’ blanket endorsement of Hamas and unchecked criticism of Israel have fueled radicalism and antisemitism in Turkey. While Erdogan’s advisors and associates have called for the destruction of Israel, hate speech against Jews has been tolerated and voiced with impunity.
The video released by Israeli authorities shows that Saklanan briefly stalked the police officers before launching a knife attack from behind, injuring one in the upper body. He was shot and killed in the process. Saklanan left behind a grieving wife and four children between the ages of 3 and 12.
Local media reports indicated that Saklanan did not even inform his family about the trip to Jordan. His friends reportedly said he was seeking the ways and means of joining the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas issued a statement on his behalf, saying, “We salute the Turkish martyr Hasan Saklanan, who carried out a heroic act in Jerusalem; we declare him a martyr of Palestine, Gaza, Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” Hamas leader Ismail Haniye spoke with Saklanan’s father and elder brother in a video phone call and conveyed his condolences.
Sheikh Ali al-Qaradaghi, the secretary-general of Muslim Brotherhood organization the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), issued a condolence statement, saying that Saklanan wanted martyrdom and was granted it. Al-Qaradaghi has long been residing in Turkey and receives VIP treatment from the Erdogan government.
Hizbullah held a funeral prayer and launched a campaign to create a lasting legacy around Saklanan’s name. They suggested that streets in all 13 districts of his home province should be renamed after him.
Turkish al-Qaeda networks also seized on Saklanan’s death, considering it an example to be followed. The Islamic Great East Raiders Front (İslami Büyük Doğu Akıncıları Cephesi, IBDA-C), a militant Turkish jihadist organization openly endorsing al-Qaeda ideology, hailed his martyrdom.
A statement posted on the group’s online platform, adimlardergisi.com, on April 30 urged attacks targeting those who harbor favorable views of Israel. “With the spread of individual actions, it wouldn’t be surprising if these actions were directed towards those doing business with Israel, with sentiments like, “Why go to Israel when there are Jewish collaborators among us?” the statement said.
The IBDA-C has called for a siege of all military bases hosting NATO and US troops in Turkey, a declaration of total war against Jews, the confiscation of assets belonging to Jews and those who engage in trade with Israel or support Israel’s economy, and the imprisonment of Turks who have endorsed Israeli views and opposed Hamas.
The IBDA-C, although it is designated as a terrorist organization due to its involvement in violent attacks and bombings in Turkey, has seen a resurgence during Erdogan’s rule. The Turkish president has orchestrated the release of convicted members of this organization from prison, including IBDA-C leader Salih Mirzabeyoğlu, who was serving a life sentence.
The release of Mirzabeyoğlu by the Erdogan government in 2014, followed by a welcoming phone call from President Erdogan to offer support, is a significant road marker. Mirzabeyoğlu passed away in May 2018, but his network is still very much alive and is in fact expanding.
Saklanan’s attack on the Israeli police, unprecedented for a Turkish citizen and especially rare for a tourist, sheds further light on the actions of the Erdogan government over the last decade. These actions have empowered various radical groups, determined to go to extremes to promote their ideologies, thus alienating Turkey from its traditional allies and partners.
In December 2016 a jihadist Turkish police officer, radicalized by imams employed by the Diyanet, assassinated Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov in the Turkish capital as a protest against the Russian military campaign targeting armed jihadist groups in Syria. The masterminds behind the attack were never brought to justice, and the Erdogan government protected the imams who had played a role in the radicalization of the police officer.
