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Azerbaijani media have released shocking details of the testimony of Islamic State (ISIS) member, Azerbaijani citizen Fuad Movsumov arrested on charge of killing gendarmerie and police officers in Turkey a few months ago, Azerbaijani information outlet Oxu.az reports citing Virtualaz.org.

According to the article, Azerbaijani citizen Fuad Movsumov and two of his comrades-in-arms drove from Turkish Khatay region to Istanbul in a rented taxi. The officers of gendarmerie and police stopped their car near the settlement Ulukisla. When the Turkish security service officers tried to search the car, the extremists opened fire on them. As a result, a gendarmerie officer and a policeman were killed. The Azerbaijani citizen and his comrades-in-arms were arrested. Their trial is expected to take place in the near future but a decision concerning its place has not yet been made.

According to the article, it can be assumed from the Azerbaijani terrorist’s testimony that he moved into Turkey in 2013 and tried to find his friend Araz with whom he had got acquainted when the latter was in Azerbaijan. He found his family in Istanbul who told the Azerbaijani that Araz had left to fight in Syria against Bashar al-Assad’s forces and joined the group of a man nicknamed Omar al-Shishani. According to the information of Oxu.az, the latter is “the most authoritative field commander” of ISIS – Tarkhan Batirashvili born in village of Birkiani, located in the Pankisi Gorge.

As the article has it, the Azerbaijani also met his friend’s wife Aida, and returning to Turkey in March stepped into religious marriage with her. 

In its turn, the outlet highlights that Turkey is a corridor to move into Syria from many foreign countries. “Some time ago the Turkish sources reported that the Azerbaijani youth, attracted to fight in Syria, is first taught jihadist ideology in mosques in Istanbul,” the outlet writes adding that their transfer to Syria is organized later on. Some Azerbaijani extremists’ families stay in Istanbul, and some leave for Syria. 

Despite the fact that several Azerbaijanis, who wanted to join ISIS, were detained in Turkey, the intelligence agencies of that country do not take up proper measures to prevent their recruitment and transfer into Syria, Oxu.az writes.

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. News 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.

Related: Well-known political party members in Azerbaijan have recruited extremists to go to war in Syria