A detailed report by the Counterterrorism Bureau compiled and analyzed hundreds of documents, testimonies and investigation reports to prepare a detailed report that reveals the ideology of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).

According to an Anadolu Agency (AA), the 181-page report also includes excerpts from the book written by the founder of the terrorist group, Fetullah Gülen, who currently resides in an expansive compound in Pennsylvania, U.S.

Starting as a lowly imam in the 1960s, Gülen became the head of a religious-political behemoth by the 2000s. Separated into financial, education, media and business sections and organized around individual cells, FETÖ for decades infiltrated state institutions, especially the judiciary, police and the military.

The 1970s and 1980s were spent consolidating the group, creating the necessary education and financial structure while slowly infiltrating into state institutions. Its schools and prep schools served as the main recruiting ground for the group, which assigned particular degrees and vocations for its members. The group at first tried to gain public legitimacy by exploiting people's religious feelings.

Dissolution

The dissolution of the group began in 2014, after its attempt to topple the government through a series of bogus corruption trials in December 2013. The group felt free to frequently use its judicial arm to eliminate its critics.

Hundreds of judges and prosecutors, supported by thousands of police officers, which included old and new recruits, and people coerced into cooperation, would initiate a criminal investigation, which would avalanche into a huge trial encompassing hundreds of suspects.

Such cases include the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases against secularist critics and the Tahşiye case against conservative individuals seen as threats. In the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases, the suspects were released in 2014 after it was revealed that the trial was based on false evidence and fabricated charges and were a plot to imprison the critics of FETÖ.

The government responded by a comprehensive offensive to rid the state of FETÖ presence, suspending thousands of known FETÖ suspects from the judiciary and police. FETÖ-linked businesses, educational institutions and NGOs were also targeted at this time.

The police report shows that the bloody July 15, 2016 coup attempt was an act of desperation rather than a well laid-out plan by a group that was constantly hemorrhaging support.

Technical knockout

The group's aim was to exploit people's religious feelings to build up the necessary human and material resources to take over the state, the report says. The group, led by a megalomaniac like Gülen, saw no limit to its ambitions. Taking over the ruling of Turkey was just a step toward global domination.

FETÖ, through its huge influence within the judiciary, wanted to sow confusion on rights and freedoms and the rule of law to create some need for order. The surveillance power of the country's law enforcement structure would also be subverted to shape politics. It was no surprise that the group has been implicated in the sex tape scandal that resulted in the replacement of the chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the resignation of several senior Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) officials.

The police, judiciary and military were reorganized in accordance with the needs of FETÖ, with hundreds of prosecutors, judges, police officers and soldiers fired or quitting over the years for refusing to swear allegiance to the group. No one seen as an obstacle to FETÖ was safe.

Gülen described their aim as a "technical knockout." He explained it to his loyalists that a knockout blow was coincidental, and could be used against the group as well. FETÖ had to know the rule of the game, and even make its own rules so that the game was always tilted to its favor.

Most well-known public relations techniques were used to boost Gülen's public image. He was portrayed as a charismatic figure. His sympathizers saw him as the "chosen one." Many of his followers see him as a sort of messiah, according to former members.

Members were told that FETÖ would be making everything better; a better life, a better order. The only thing they needed to do was complete obedience to FETÖ hierarchy.

Operatives who infiltrated state institutions or other sensitive posts were told to hide their true nature and affiliation. Many operatives acted like secularists, most known for consuming alcohol and other things that are prohibited in Islam.

While performing their duties as senior officials, many were taking their orders from "imams" of FETÖ, usually academics or teachers. Objections were dismissed and operatives were told they were serving Islam.

FETÖ rhetoric

Gülen's books and sermons were scrutinized. A scientific analysis of the text showed that between 35 to 50 percent of it involved tactics, strategies and orders disguised for political, economic and sociocultural messages communicated in a specialized language only decipherable to members.

Between 34 to 40 percent were stories of past prophets to motivate members and recruit new ones. Ten to 15 percent of what he said and wrote was to portray himself as a messiah, stories about his life, extraordinary things that happened to him, his future projections. Only 1 percent of what he said and wrote was clear political messages.

FETÖ, which called itself "Hizmet," focused on human resources through its education infrastructure and finance through its banking arm and network of collectors who targeted friendly businesses. As a mainly Sunni organization, FETÖ created an umbrella ideology, which covered religion, nationalism, statism and liberalism depending on its needs.

Creatıng enemies

While climbing the steps to achieve its objectives, FETÖ also divided the world into two. One, "soldiers of service," were there to obey orders and push the message forward. "Others" were subdivided into "those who can be won over" and "enemies."

The group found it easy to subvert any organization through this division. Operatives who infiltrated institutions motivated its adherents through promotions while culling anyone or anything that was construed as the enemy. Its "Golden Generation," educated and brainwashed at FETÖ institutions, were able to take over or at least control to a certain degree many strategic state institutions.

The aim was to control rather than fight the system. After gaining a certain amount of control, legal or not so legal means were used to rid the institutions of people seen as obstacles.

The state influence it exerted, coupled with educational and media power it had, was used to transform the society into one that would accept a rule based on Gülen's version of theocracy.

Gülen's religious, cultural, political and economic opinions were the foundations of the group's ideology. Rather than emerging as a political party, the group preferred to establish huge power on nonpolitical forces in the state and private sectors to exert huge political influence.

Its "himmet" system was the financial artery that fed the entire structure. Acting like a parallel tax system, the highly hierarchical group allowed the few at the top to enjoy the fruits collected by the multitudes at the bottom.

Holdings, nongovernmental organizations and educational institutions both in Turkey and abroad were subverted to foster and spread Gülen's ideology, which utilized the religious and cultural clout to expand even further.

Akin to the Stalinist efforts to create a New Soviet Man, Gülen tried to encourage members to become foot soldiers to the social and cultural ideology of FETÖ, seeing single FETÖ type human beings as the foundation stones of a new society.