Turkey says 4 arrested over suspected coup attempt

BY CARLOS BONAVENTURA / Reuters A military helicopter has been seen over Istanbul after it was fired on on on Sunday, an official said, in what Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said was a coup attempt.

Ankara has warned that military helicopters in Turkey could be used as weapons against it and blamed the U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood, which Turkey accuses of plotting the attempted coup.

Turkey’s armed forces have carried out military coups in the past, including in 1960 and 1974, when it was allied with the United States and its allies in the military alliance known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

But the coup attempt on Sunday was the biggest since the late 1990s.

The official, who asked not to be identified, told Anadoraz, a state-owned news agency, that the military had fired the missile.

He said no civilian or military personnel were in the vicinity.

The Turkish military is the country’s most powerful.

It has been in control of most of the southeast, a region of roughly two million people.

The military has been trying to stem the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in the wake of a string of high-profile arrests.

The party was banned last year.