WELL-KNOWN POLITICAL PARTY MEMBERS IN AZERBAIJAN HAVE RECRUITED EXTREMISTS TO GO TO WAR IN SYRIA
11:16 12/03/2015 ” SOCIETY
As part of the program of fighting crime, the law enforcement
agencies of Azerbaijan have carried out their subsequent special
operation in Terter district unmasking an organized criminal group
of extremist nature, whose members propagate religious intolerance
and discrimination, as well as recruit the citizens of the country,
Azerbaijani information agency APA reports.
According to the article, a resident of the district has turned to the
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan saying that his underage
son had been recruited by the members of radical religious movements
and sent to Syria where he fought for illegal armed groups.
With joint efforts, the Special police, the employees of General
Directorate for Combating Organized Crime in Azerbaijan, Terter
district police and the prosecutor’s office detained 4 members
of that organization: previously convicted Zulfugar Ibrahimov,
Mubariz Mirzaliyev, Shamseddin Abdullazade and Vugar Aliyev, the
agency reports.
According to the article, a machine-gun with two magazines, 800
grams of explosives, 9 hand grenades with fuses, 170 cartridges, a
significant amount of religious literature and discs which are banned
to spread, as well as other evidence was found and confiscated during
the search of their flats.
In its turn, Azerbaijani news outlet Haqqin.az highlights that two
of the above-mentioned four detained people are the comrades-in-arms
of well-known Azerbaijani MPs. Detained Vugar Sabiroglu Aliyev was a
deputy representative of the international affairs of the party Umid
headed by the MP Iqbal Agazade. Zulfugar Ibrahimov was the head of
the Terter branch of Great Establishment party, whose leader is the
Azerbaijani MP Fazil Mustafa.
Note that Azerbaijani terrorists are fighting in the ranks of various
terrorist groupings that operate in Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to the Azerbaijani news outlets, over the past three years
almost 200 Azerbaijani terrorists have been killed in Syria alone. The
outlets have more than once reported the liquidation of commanders
among Azerbaijani terrorists.
The relationship between international terrorist groups and Azerbaijan
originated in the early 1990s. That time, the Azerbaijani army, having
failed in the aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR),
retreated with losses. Trying to save the situation, the Azerbaijani
leadership, headed by Heydar Aliyev, attracted to the war against the
Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh international terrorists and members of
radical groups from Afghanistan (groupings of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar),
Turkey (“Grey Wolves”, etc.), Chechnya (groupings Basayev and Raduyev
etc.) and some other regions.
Despite the involvement of thousands of foreign mercenaries and
terrorists in the Azerbaijani army during the war, the Azerbaijani
aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh Republic failed, and the Baku
authorities were forced to sign an armistice with the NKR and Armenia.
However, international terrorists found ties in Azerbaijan, and used
them in the future. Recruitment was conducted among Azerbaijanis,
who then were sent to Afghanistan and the North Caucasus, where
participated in the battles against the forces of the international
coalition and Russian organizations. In recent years, the citizens of
Azerbaijan are actively involved in terrorist and extremist activities
in Russia, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.