The orders that the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) ringleader U.S.-based Fetullah Gülen issued in a meeting before Turkey’s July 15 coup have started to emerge.
According to Turkish news publication Aydınlık, Gülen demanded President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan be captured alive in instructions given to the imam of Turkey. FETÖ refers to its cell leaders as “imams.”
Gülen, who instructed that Erdoğan should be handcuffed from behind upon being captured, requested that a kneeling photograph of Erdoğan be taken. Gülen also ordered that once Erdoğan was caught, he would speak with him and that conversation would be recorded.
FETÖ ringleader Gülen's instructions regarding Erdoğan resemble the CIA's "disloyalty" tactics. Security sources likened Gülen’s orders to the photographs that U.S. troops in Iraq used to announce to the world the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Gülen planned to use the same tactic, used by the U.S. to showcase Saddam, on Erdoğan, security sources said.
The sources added that had the coup succeeded, Gülen planned to return to Turkey and that the scheme was organized in conjunction with the CIA. The plan was for Gülen to return to Istanbul and be greeted with a welcoming ceremony attended by millions.
Security sources said putschists went to great lengths to make the coup appear to be within the “chain of command,” but that due to the resistance of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), that pretense was not portrayed.
In exchange for all requests to be fulfilled, the U.S. backed the coup attempt. A channel of the U.S. administration that was backing the coup withdrew its support when the notion that the coup attempt was supported by the chain of command could not be executed and the attempt seemed unsuccessful.
The scheduling of the coup attempt was then pulled to an earlier time and this resulted in chaos amongst the putschists, a security source said.
