AZERI SOLDIER FALLS IN FRONTLINE SHOOTING

AzerNews Weekly
Nov 19 2008
Azerbaijan

An Azerbaijani soldier died after killing two Armenian servicemen,
the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry spokesman, Eldar Sabiroghlu, has said.

According to Sabiroghlu, Orkhan Shamilov was killed following another
ceasefire violation by Armenian troops close to Azerbaijan`s Fuzuli
district on Sunday.

"Shamilov, who was on duty during the night, tried to retaliate. After
several minutes of skirmishing, he came out of the trench and advanced
toward the Armenian side while firing shots. Having killed two Armenian
soldiers, he died himself," the spokesman said.

Sabiroghlu said that although the enemy managed to remove the dead
bodies of their soldiers, the 20-year-old Azerbaijani soldier`s corpse
remained in an area very close to Armenian armed forces. Efforts are
being made to retrieve the body.

Sabiroghlu dismissed Armenian allegations that Azerbaijani
special troops had attempted to move behind Armenian units on the
frontline. "This is a concoction of the Armenian side," he added.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict over Upper
(Nagorno) Garabagh for over a decade. The region, which is
internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, was occupied
by Armenia in the early 1990s, along with seven other Azerbaijani
districts, after large-scale hostilities killed some 30,000 people
and forced one million Azeris from their homes. The ceasefire accord
was signed in 1994, but Armenian armed forces have repeatedly breached
the ceasefire along the frontline.