A NEW DAWN
As the sun rose, the morning of July 16 began with police rounding up hundreds of coup plotters.
Soldiers who had occupied Istanbul's Bosphorus Bridge began to surrender, while Ankara's Gölbaşı was also brought back under control.
Meanwhile, FETÖ members threw bombs near the Presidential Complex, damaging a car. A military jet of the plotters bombed an intersection near the complex, killing 15.
Then-Interior Minister Efkan Ala suspended 29 military colonels and five generals whose links with FETÖ had been revealed.
After 8 a.m., Gen. Hulusi Akar was rescued from pro-coup forces.
By 10 in the morning, a total of 1,563 armed FETÖ members were detained across the country.
Police special forces entered the General Staff Headquarters at 10.25 a.m. to detain the remaining pro-coup soldiers there, while less than 50 minutes later, bombs were dropped on the runway of the Akıncı Air Base-used as a command center during the coup bid-to prevent the takeoff of putschist-piloted planes.
Nearly 200 soldiers at General Staff Headquarters surrendered to police.
Around 1,374 suspected FETÖ-linked military personnel were detained across the country, including the 58th Artillery Brigade Commander Brig. Gen. Murat Aygün.
As of 12.57 a.m., then-Prime Minister Yıldırım declared that the coup had been defeated and democracy had triumphed in Türkiye.
