An excerpt from, "The "coup" was a fraud?" By Pat Lang, July 16, 2016:
From what I am hearing from sources in Turkey, this may have been a pre-emptive "false flag" operation in which a group of members of the armed forces were sent into the fraudulent "coup" by Erdogan loyalists among senior officers. He has appointed many. IOW the people in the "coup" may have been deliberately sacrificed as "props" so that Erdogan could whip up his followers and consolidate power before he changes the constitution to make himself an absolute ruler.
An excerpt from, "Critics Raise False Flag After Failed Military Coup In Turkey" By Brian Patrick Byrne, Adi Cohen and Jacob Steinblatt, Vocativ, July 16, 2016:
On subreddit r/Turkey, some insisted the coup attempt was a false flag. One user claimed Erdoğan allowed the coup to happen so it could lead to him exerting greater control. “If he was positive that it was only a relatively small portion of the military, he could have allowed it to happen, thus exposing any officers opposed to him and giving him an excuse to both restructure the military with loyal members and grant himself more executive powers as President to combat disorder.”
Some Twitter users shared a similar sentiment. “False flag successful: Now Erdoğan will do whatever he wants to end his transformation of Turkey into a Muslim Brotherhood state,” one user claimed.