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"According to our data, about 250 citizens of our country are fighting in Syria currently," ex-employee of MNS Colonel Ilham Ismail told the portal "Haqqin.az".

According to him, participation of the Azerbaijan citizen in armed groups in Syria and Iraq is a serious threat to the security of the country.

"Over three months, I beat the alarm, insisting that the security services of the Republic stopped the flow of Azerbaijanis that are rushing to the conflict areas of the Middle East," Ismail notes.

The former employee of the Azerbaijani MNS is concerned with the fate of the militants involved in the conflict in the Middle East. "There is a great danger that they will arrive in Azerbaijan to destabilize the situation at home. Now Azerbaijanis leave for Iraq to fight.
According to my information, ten young men have left for Iraq only from the former Soviet street," he said.

Ilham Ismail noted that the situation worsens and increasingly becomes difficult.

"Not journalists like Rauf Mirkadirov threaten our security, but those groups who should be immediately neutralized. The task of any special services is to see what others do not see, and the MNS should first of all focus its efforts on the fight against the radical extremism. In my opinion, the powers are carried away with the struggle against the opposition and journalists and have missed the real threat to the state," Ilham Ismail believes.

Note that Azerbaijani Salafis or Wahhabis are fighting in the ranks of various terrorist groupings that operate in Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the Azerbaijani news agency Vesti.az the total number of Azerbaijani terrorists in these countries equals to 300. Whereas according to FaktHeber Azerbaijani portal over the past three years only in Syria almost 200 Azerbaijani terrorists were killed.

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 in 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 and Syria.