Azerbaijani media: Embassy increases security in Baku because of ISIS threatening
Only in January several articles about ISIS’s threatening to Azerbaijan appeared in international media outlets, and Baku has already taken up special measures related to the security of the leading countries and European state diplomacy, Azerbaijani information portal “Minval.az” reports, referring to the site “Axar.az.”
As it’s noted in the article, although the main reasons for increasing the security measures in embassies whose protection is carried out by the special services and intelligence agency of the country, is not reported, it’s assumingly done because of the military-political conflict going on in the region. It’s also reported that the law enforcement agencies are taking a particularly active part in the embassies’ security. “These measures are directed to reducing the psychological tension created in the world by that terroristic organisation, and serve to ensuring a greater sense of confidence of the diplomats,” reads the article.
According to the portal, an anonymous employee of the special services of the country noted that the warriors, fighting in the due time for ISIS, can become a source of a real threat when they come back to Azerbaijan. As for the increased security in the embassies in Baku, the employee made a sensational assumption. “That the increasing of those security measures set on after the head-of-the-country’s visits to Germany and Davos, is of interest,” he added, claiming that some undercover information regarding the ISIS threat was conveyed to Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan.
The portal also notes that the European outlet “Another Western Dawn News” has recently published a sensational piece of news about the ISIS threat in Azerbaijan. It reported that Abdul Wahid Khudair Ahmad, the ISIL “Minister of Internal Affairs,” had called on the warriors from Azerbaijan to commence an armed struggle against the Western-backed Azerbaijani authorities.
The outlet claimed that Saudi Arabia, that directs and finances the Islamic jihadists, has been secretly trained and developed radical mujahideens in Azerbaijan since 1998. The report also notes that fighting in Syria eventually came to be those trained in those detachments.
The portal notes that in a few days the Turkish newspaper “Yeni Cag,” too, published an article regarding the increased ISIS activities in Azerbaijan. It notes that the hands of ISIS were able to reach up to Azerbaijan, too. After passing an appropriate training, the young radicals took their families and set on their way to Syria through Turkey. Those who want back are threatened with arrest in Baku.
As the article has it, although the Azerbaijan Ministry of National Security is regularly conducting operations against the extremists, this process doesn’t cease but goes on. “So, Elnara Mammadova, a resident of the village Dashuz from the region Shekin has recently left for Syria with her three children, mother, sister and son-in-law. The group-of-nine set to Balakan, crossed the Georgian border and made it to Syria through Turkey,” remind the portal.
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, Syria and Iraq.