All kicking off in Turkey

[Thunder]

Turkey seems in be in the midst of a Military coup, tanks are on the street of Istanbul and a/c are reportedly flying low over Ankara

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36809083

[Budgie516]

Just seen F-16s over Istanbul on sky news

[Precinct7]

just looking at FR24 IST airport still open to traffic

[Micky S]

Videos on Twitter ofF16s literally flying down the roads at building height.

Didn't see Solo Turk that low at Fairford!

[MacksAviation]

just looking at FR24 IST airport still open to traffic

Those aircraft I can see at lower levels over Turkey are in turmoil and not landing in Istanbul sad sad state of affairs in a NATO country !!

[jeallen01]

FWIW, I'm not that surprised that this has happened - Eurodgan has been pursuing a very hard line Moslem, and anti-Kurdish, approach over the last few years, and it seems almost inevitable that the military would take some sort of opposite approach.

[GouldJordan14]

Appears that an loyalist F16 has now brought down a military attack helicopter

[22A]

Now reported "A Turkish military helicopter has landed in Greece and eight Turkish military personnel have requested Political Asylum".

[Tally-ho]

Turkey - the following very recently added insert on Wiki pages (and news elsewhere):-

- "Reportedly, no government official was arrested or harmed, which among other factors raised the suspicion of a false flag event staged by the government itself".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tay ... at_attempt

The inference is therefor that President Erdogan may have used this 'event' to boost his (flagging) popularity, bearing in mind the complexities of combining Islam with democratic governance. Thrown into the mix is the self-declared vision / aim / manifestation of Turkey as a secular state (separation of church and state).

Also -

- "Turkey has the second largest standing military force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, with an estimated strength of 495,000 deployable forces, according to a 2011 NATO estimate. Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance. A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force in case of a nuclear conflict, but their use requires the approval of NATO".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey#Military

And you have a country and a people and a military that indulged in four coups d'état since WW2 .... certainly no boredom there.

[jeallen01]

Turkey - the following very recently added insert on Wiki pages (and news elsewhere):-

- "Reportedly, no government official was arrested or harmed, which among other factors raised the suspicion of a false flag event staged by the government itself".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tay ... at_attempt ....

And a reported 2800 or so court judges were arrested, and you don't organise THAT "overnight" - sounds like a take-over of the legal systems by the government.

[22A]

And you have a country and a people and a military that indulged in four coups d'état since WW2 .... certainly no boredom there.

In the 70's there was a military coup as the Military chiefs considered the main political parties were either too far right or left wing. The armed forces took over and promised to return the country to civilian rule when they had sorted themselves out.
The military kept their word and handed power back once stable policies had been produced.