The moment the coup attempt started to foil

As Turkey is heading toward the first anniversary of the July 15, 2016, military coup attempt, new details about the plot and how it started to fall apart are emerging. 

Documents and indictments show that as the coup soldiers started their operation in the headquarters of the Turkish General Staff, they first raided the offices of Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Yaşar Gürel. Since the cabinet chiefs of both acted together with the coup plotters, both generals were seized by force.

At 21:30, directives signed by Brigadier Gen. Mehmet Partigöç, as the director of the Personnel Planning and Direction of the headquarters, were started to be posted to all related units of the Turkish Armed Forces through the Message and Document Delivery System (MEDAS) of the military.

The first message was called "Appointments," delivered to the units at 21:28 when the "Peace at Home Council," as the plotters called themselves, appointed and promoted new names to ranking positions that were already full. Partigöç, as an alleged member of the council, for example, was promoted in that message to a nonexistent position as an assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff.

The second message titled "Participations," which decided on which units should do what according to the coup plot, was delivered through the system at 21:53.

The third message was titled "Martial Law Directive," delivered at 22:21 and claimed from that point onward that the council had seized the power in Turkey and imposed a martial law, which is required to be applied by all units at once. 

Those messages and especially the last one was a mistake. It was a breach of the inner protocols of the Turkish military messaging system....