Military attempting a coup against Turkish government

"This is an attack against Turkish democracy. A group within the Armed Forces has made an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government outside the chain of command," a senior Turkish official said.

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The General Staff of the Armed Forces said in a statement that its leaders had seized control of the government "in accordance with the constitution."

That statement, the government official said, "wasn't authorized by the military command."

It was unclear Friday night whether the coup -- which saw soldiers deployed across the capital, Ankara, and Turkey's largest city, Istanbul -- was successful. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim appeared on a local television station earlier in the night, claiming that the military had attempted to overthrow the government but that it had failed.