A screengrab from a video posted by the Turkish interior minister shows the 18-year-old suspect who filmed himself stabbing at least five people in the city of Eskisehir in northwestern Turkey on August 12, 2024. (Source: https://x.com/AliYerlikaya/status/1823118697696825358)
An 18-year-old suspect who livestreamed himself stabbing multiple people near a mosque in the Turkish city of Eskişehir on August 12, 2024, was fueled by the extremist belief in accelerationism and motivated by past mass killers including white supremacists, an analysis by the ADL Center on Extremism has shown.
Wearing a skull mask and a tactical vest with a sonnenrad patch — both common symbols utilized by white supremacists and accelerationists — and armed with a hatchet and two knives, the teen injured at least five people during the filmed attack, which quickly circulated on X and Telegram. He was later apprehended and detained by police.
The investigation by COE found that on the day of the stabbings, the assailant created a Telegram chat where he shared a file containing his “manifesto” -- which was rife with antisemitism -- and other extremist publications. Just minutes before the attack, another Telegram user reshared links to the manifesto and forwarded a post from the suspect with the planned time of the attack, announcing the “STREAM WILL START IN A FEW MINUTES.” Following the attack, that same user shared a recording of the attacker’s livestream.
Turkish media outlets have reported that the assailant discussed the attack with someone from Eastern Europe on Steam, a gaming and social media platform.
Attacker’s Screed
A review of the attacker’s “manifesto” indicated that he harbors extreme misanthropic and racist views; was inspired by many prior mass killers, including white supremacists; and was driven by accelerationism, an extremist belief that society is irredeemable, collapse is inevitable and the best course of action is to “accelerate” this collapse through chaos and violence.
In his manifesto, the attacker wrote “[t]his system will eventually collapse ... [m]y actions and yours will accelerate this collapse and sooner or later the country, and then the world, will be covered in anarchy.” He also urged readers to “go to the nearest electrical transformer station and sabotage it ... you can even take it to the next level and cut down the electrical transmission towers in any forest.”
Such calls for sabotage are often seen in accelerationist propaganda.
Describing himself as a “National Socialist,” the attacker expressed hatred for a range of people, including Kurds, Jews, communists, feminists and Black people. He referenced Jews more than any other group, encouraging others to attack synagogues, sharing antisemitic tropes about Jewish power and promoting the false claim that Jews finance degeneracy.
COE also uncovered antisemitic comments the assailant posted on Steam in 2023. Using the screen name “Skrewdriver,” the assailant wrote "getting a job is Jewish I'd rather stay unemployed" and shared multiple copy pastas memes (blocks of digital text that can be copied and pasted across platforms) about "ZOG," an acronym for “Zionist Occupied Government” that references the antisemitic belief that the government is controlled by Jews.
Copypastas posted on Steam by the attacker referencing ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government) in July 2023.
The assailant claimed he was not associated with an extremist group and declared that he was a “lone wolf.” He also expressed admiration for other lone wolf far-right mass killers including the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, who killed over 70 people, the shooter in the 2019 mosque attacks in New Zealand who gunned down 50 people, and the Jacksonville gunman who killed three at a store in 2023.
The teen suspect likened himself to these killers, all of whom are regularly lauded by accelerationists, and expressed a desire to be listed among them following his attack. He also hoped to inspire others to act on their hatred and encouraged readers to livestream their own violent actions to encourage future attackers.
Influences
The Eskişehir attacker expressed admiration for many mass killers throughout his manifesto, referring to terrorists such as the Oslo shooter, the Christchurch shooter, and the Oklahoma City bomber as “saints,” a term of reverence used by accelerationists. He also included photos of other American mass killers that he admired, including the Columbine shooters and Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber.
Essentially using predecessor attacks as a blueprint, the Eskişehir attacker emulated elements of their actions and writings. Mimicking both the Christchurch and Jacksonville shooters, he included a “Question and Answer” section in his manifesto and scrawled white supremacist symbols on his weapon, including a swastika, SS bolts and KKK. He also livestreamed his rampage on social media — a tactic utilized by several prior mass attackers.
Items including the skull mask and the tactical vest with the neo-Nazi symbol allegedly found on the teen at the time of his arrest. (Source: Ali Yerlikaya via X)
Although he lived in Turkey, the Eskişehir attacker appears to have been heavily influenced by Western extremist propaganda. In his manifesto, he used English-language memes and slurs and included the logo for the now-defunct Atomwaffen Division, a US based neo-Nazi accelerationist group. The file of propaganda he shared along with his manifesto included Siege, a collection of essays written by American neo-Nazi James Mason, and Industrial Society and its Future, the manifesto of American domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski.
The Eskişehir attacker also encouraged readers to make explosives and “blow up federal buildings” in a manner similar to the Oklahoma City bomber, though Turkey, being a unitary state, does not have equivalent “federal buildings.” He also held great disdain for communists, a common refrain among far-right extremists in the United States and wrote that he initially planned to attack a building belonging to the Turkish Communist Party despite it holding little power or significance in Turkish politics.
At the same time, the dislike of radical leftist groups which have been villainized by Turkey’s Islamist-ultranationalist ruling bloc shows local influence.
The Eskişehir attacker’s influences extended beyond American mass killers. Along with his manifesto, he shared copies of the Christchurch and Bratislava shooter’s manifestos, as well as all three publications released by the Terrorgram Collective, an international network of propagandists that create instructional manuals designed to inspire acts of violence and sabotage. In his screed, the suspect advised readers to save these documents, as they would be “useful” to those who seek to plan their own attack.
The assailant also appears to have been influenced by online gamer culture, dedicating a section of his manifesto to an item list assigning points based on the attacker’s clothing, weapons, methods and number of casualties, seeking to gamify his attack and future ones carried out by others.
Extremist Reactions
While the Turkey mosque attacker sought to inspire others and join the ranks of the mass killers, he has largely been ridiculed by other extremists online. On 4chan and incels.is, a popular incels forum, users have criticized the assailant for failing to kill anyone. On Telegram, some white supremacist and accelerationist groups disavowed his actions altogether because they considered him to be non-white.
