Turkey imploding | Emergency Preparedness | Forums

uh, who has control of the 70 nuclear warheads we have there

ISTANBUL — Military factions in Turkey attempted to seize control of the country Friday night, setting off a furious scramble for power and plunging the crucial NATO member and American ally into chaos in what already was one of the world’s most unstable regions.

Early Saturday morning, however, President Recep Tayyp Erdogan, whose whereabouts were unclear through a long night of turmoil, flew to Istanbul Ataturk Airport, a presidential aide said. It was a strong signal that the coup was failing.

There were indications that coup leaders, at a minimum, did not have a tight grip on many parts of the country. Supporters of Mr. Erdogan took to the streets of Istanbul to oppose the coup plotters, and there were scattered reports some of its leaders had been arrested.

Martial law was declared in the country, which has been convulsed by military takeovers at least three times in the past half-century. President Erdogan, an Islamist who has dominated politics for more than a decade and sought to exert greater control over the armed forces, was forced to use his iPhone’s FaceTime app from an undisclosed location to broadcast messages beseeching the public to resist the coup attempt.

“There is no power higher than the power of the people,” he said in a night of wild confusion and contradictory accounts of who was in control. “Let them do what they will at public squares and airports.”

After Mr. Erdogan spoke, many of his followers obeyed his orders to go into the streets, and mosque loudspeakers exhorted his supporters to go out and protest against the coup attempt.

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