A defiant President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared on national television some six hours after a breakaway faction of the Turkish military launched a coup, pledging to defeat the attempt to topple his government.

“Those who drive around in tanks will have to go back where they came from,” he said, calling the soldiers involved in the coup “our children,” and imploring them to not to direct weapons on their family. “We are in charge and we will continue exercising our powers until the end. We will not abandon our country to these invaders.”

He suggested that he was targeted for assassination, referring to an explosion in the coastal town of Marmaris in southern Turkey, just after he departed, saying that it showed that the soldiers attempting the coup “thought I was there and they couldn’t track our movement.” Television images from the scene showed evidence of a fire and spent shells.