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Azerbaijani state information agency AzerTAc reported an unconfirmed loss in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. The news was rewritten by several pro-governmental media, however, the next day in the evening the publications regarding this topic were removed from the news outlets loyal to the authorities, Armenian military-analytical outlet Razm.info writes in an article about methods of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan to hide the losses in the army.

According to the article, on March 28, Azerbaijani state information agency AzerTAc reported that officer and senior lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan, Ahmadov Igbal Serraf oglu, born in 1980, had died in the direction of Aghdam on the line of contact earlier in the day. It was also noted in the article that he was buried under volleys in the presence of the commanders of the military unit where he served. Akhmadov was buried in his native village of Ashagi Nyuvedi, district Lankaran.

The press office of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan did not make an official statement concerning the death of the senior lieutenant Igbal Ahmadov, however, a number of Azerbaijani media, including pro-governmental information agency APA reported the death of the officer citing the publication of AzerTAc. The article about Igbal Ahmadov’s funeral was posted on APA’s site on March 29 in the morning, Razm.info writes.

As the article has it, the publication about a senior lieutenant’s death on the website of a pro-governmental or loyal to the authorities information agency at first seemed to be one of the exceptional cases, when the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan decided to report the loss in order to create an illusion for the population of the country that the losses are not hidden. However, the events that followed showed something quite different: on 29 March in the evening the articles covering the topic were removed from the websites of the above-mentioned information agencies and a number of other news services. Nonetheless, both AzerTAc’s and APA’s articles, that were first published and then removed, were saved in the Google search engine database cache.

The outlet reminds that this is not the first case. On March 24, Azerbaijani news outlet Moderator.az, citing its own sources, reported that a soldier from one of the military units in Jalilabad district, Yusifov Semerhan Etibar oglu, had been killed by his fellow soldier. The press office of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan did not comment on the information, and the publication was removed from the website on the following day.

A similar case was detected by the specialists on March, 26 when it was known from the Azerbaijani non-official open sources that a contract serviceman, Kazimov Etibar Khudavi oglu, was killed on the line of contact of the troops. The information was posted on the website of the opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat on March 26; however, it was removed a little later, again being saved only in the Google search engine database. On the next day, on March 27, the press office of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan was obliged to admit the fact of the military loss only after the information was widely spread in the social media.

As the article has it, yet another time concrete facts reaffirm that the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan takes up various measures in attempt to hide the real number of the losses in the army from its own population trying to make an impression of ‘victorious actions.’

“Nonetheless, ‘the victorious picture’ is sometimes distorted because of this kind of slips, which forces the Azerbaijani authorities to make use of such brutal methods as removing the materials - that have already spread in the social networks - from information websites,” the outlet concludes.

Note also that since early 2015 the Azerbaijani government agencies acknowledged the death of 13 servicemen: according to official information, 9 of them were combat deaths on the frontline.