Factions within the Turkish military attempted to seize control of the government on late Friday night, leaving the Parliament building bombed, jets swarming over Istanbul and at least 42 killed in the capital Ankara, according to a prosecutor’s office there.
As day broke, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told state-run Anadolu News Agency that rebel-controlled air force jets continued to bomb parts of the capital-including the parliament building-even after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that the coup had been “repelled.”
In Istanbul, jets could be heard flying low above the city throughout the night, with reports on social media of windows shattering from the planes’ sonic booms. Gunfire could be heard in the central Beyoglu neighborhood-a tourist hub-between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.. The newsrooms of CNN Turk and Hurriyet , also in Istanbul, were briefly occupied by rebelling military officers.
President Erdogan blamed the coup attempt on followers of Fethullah Gulen, an exiled cleric based in Pennsylvania, whose “Hizmet” movement is regularly accused of plotting against the government. The Alliance for Shared Values, a U.S.-based non-profit associated with Gulen, released a statement, saying the movement has “consistently denounced military interventions in domestic politics.” Suleyman Aydogan of the Peace Islands Institute, another group linked to Gulen, confirmed that Gulen himself may soon issue a statement condemning the violence-a rare move for a reclusive cleric.
(Noah Caldwell is a freelance journalist)
