42 Killed In Turkey Coup Attempt, Say Officials

Mangalore Today News Network

Ankara July 16, 2016 : 17 Turkish officers have reportedly been killed in a helicopter attack on police special forces headquarters on the outskirts of Ankara as the Turkey military has launched a coup and declared martial law and curfew. Military forces have also opened fire on crowds gathered in Istanbul, causing casualties, news agency AFP reported.

 

The soldiers opened fire on grounds around the first bridge across the Bosphorus dividing Europe and Asia, said an AFP photographer, who saw wounded people being taken to ambulances.


The Turkish parliament has been hit by bombing, reported the state news agency.


A Sikorsky helicopter hijacked by coup plotters was shot down by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet, a presidential source said.
Soldiers were seen on the streets in Istanbul and Ankara as jets flew low overhead. Citizens rushed for the safety of their homes after witnessing the coup attempt.


Television pictures showed tanks deployed outside Ataturk airport in Istanbul. Reports said that flights into the airport had been halted.


"The power in the country has been seized in its entirety," said a military statement quoted by Turkish media. It said the move had been made "in order to ensure and restore constitutional order, democracy, human rights and freedoms and let the supremacy law in the country prevail, to restore order which was disrupted."


Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is safe, said a presidential source. Erdogan has vowed that ’coup’ plotters will not succeed, reported Agence France-Presse.


"We are working on the possibility of an attempt. We will not allow this attempt," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told NTV television by telephone.


Turkey’s top general was taken hostage at the military headquarters in the capital Ankara after the attempt to bring down the government, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.


The Indian embassy in Ankara has advised all Indian nationals in Turkey to avoid public places and remain indoors, tweeted Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup. He also shared emergency contact numbers for Indian nationals In Ankara