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Azerbaijan police stepped up enhanced security measures after clashes took place in Nardaran settlement, Baku, local news agency Trend reports.

The roads taking to the settlement are under strict control and all the cars driving into the territory undergo thorough checks.

According to Haqqin.az, no media representative remained in the settlement after the Islamists attacked journalists. Reportedly, the Nardaran residents explain their aggressive actions against the Azerbaijani journalists by the media criticism. “They call us extremists. We fear that the journalists may film our faces and circulate those photos in the websites and social media,” locals, who had gathered at the centre of the settlement, told Haqqin.az’s correspondent.

The correspondent estimated 200 or 300 people in the centre of the settlement at night.  They made a big fire and sang religious songs. “Even at night, the flow of reserve forces of the Internal Troops does not stop and security checkpoints are being established,” Haqqin.az writes.

Meanwhile, Caucasus Muslim Board (CMB) decidedly rejects the attempts to connect the Nardaran incidents with religion. “We consider those incidents as an attempt to split the society and to forcefully takeover the authority, organised by external and internal forces pursuing certain political aims,” CMB said in a statement cited by Trend.

Haqqin.az reports that there is information about Allahshukur Pashazade, the CMB head, declaring the police officers, who were killed during the armed clashes with the Islamists, shehids. Citing sources in law enforcements, the website notes that the killed policemen were Nasibov Nazim oglu and Tagiyev Ismayil Rasul oglu, and the names of the killed Islamists are Akbar Nazim oglu Babayev, Sarvan Shirvan oglu Safarov, Rafayil Zeynalabdin oglu Bunyadov and Abbas Huseyn. The latter died in hospital.

According to Turan news agency, last night was relatively calm in Nardaran and no new extreme acts were reported. The agency highlights that this situation araises serious questions to the authorities, and first of all, to the leadership of the Interior Ministry. “Why was it necessary to conduct such a demonstratively brute operation during a prayer and to seize people by using arms, and all this happening in a place of mass gathering, where many women and children were present?” Turan wonders. 

The agency reports that the leaders of Muslims Unity have an office in Baku. They often go there and they could be arrested there or on their way there. “Why was a massacre needed in Nardaran centre setting the local population against the authorities? The authorities’ claims that Bagirzade’s supporters were organising an armed overthrow of power sound ridiculous and unconvincing,” the agency highlights. It notes that they are rather an attempt to justify the high number of deaths and to free the executives of the operation from responsibility.

The agency also reports that the elders of the settlement Nardaran intend to negotiate with the leadership of law enforcement of the country to clear up the situation of the detainees and the injured, as well as of handing the corpses of those killed. Natiq Karimov, one of the elders, says there is still no exact information about those injured and detained. “According to the family members, 18 or 20 people are detained. There is no information about the injured or their number,” Karimov said.

He added that the locals of the settlement are angry with the authorities making statements that a revolution was being prepared in Nardaran and calling the arrested young people extremists. “We categorically deny those claims. We demand a fair investigation. The eyewitnesses confirm that the locals did not shoot at the police. The law enforcement should find out who shot. Indiscriminate mass arrests are inadmissible,” Karimov said.

Trend reports that Javad Javadov, detained Taleh Bagirov’s lawyer, said that he had no information about his defendant’s exact place of detention and that he had not met him yet.

According to Day.az, Baku metro stepped up enhanced security measures. Reportedly, the Interior Ministry’s quick response regiment replaced the police at Baku Metro Main Police Department. Three officers of the quick response regiment are on duty at the entrance to the station and check the passengers’ luggage and carry-on bags.

On 26 November, an armed clash occurred between the leader of the Shia Islamists of Azerbaijan, Taleh Bagirzade, and his supporters and the police in the settlement Nardaran 25 km to the north from Baku. Reportedly, police carried out the special operation during the daytime prayer inciting the believers’ strong discontent. A group of Special Forces in black masks broke into the shrine Huseyniyye, where Muslims were praying, and threw smoke bombs inside. Then they pushed black sacks on Taleh Bagirzade and some others’ heads and dragged them out of the place. In addition, some drugs were given to several people, which made them faint. Immediately after that, mass unrest broke out in Nardaran with people gathering on a spontaneous demonstration.