Azerbaijan: Iranian, Hezbollah operatives arrested
for plotting attack against foreign targets
Barak Ravid, Haaretz, Feb 21 2012
Azerbaijan’s national security agency announced on Tuesday that it has arrested several activists belonging to the Iranian intelligence service and Hezbollah. The operatives are suspected of planning terrorist attacks against foreigners in the capital Baku. The state-owned television channel reported that the suspects began gathering intelligence and bought explosives, guns and ammunition. Last month, three men were detained after planning to attack two Israelis employed by a Jewish school in Baku. The Azeri ministry said at the time that it had arrested a cell that planned to “kill public activists,” before it became apparent that the intended victims were two Israeli Chabad emissaries, a rabbi and a teacher employed by the Chabad Or Avner school in Baku. The government said that the three men, named as Rasim Aliyev, Ali Huseynov and Balaqardash Dadashov, received smuggled arms and equipment from Iranian agents. The action was apparently planned as retaliation to the gunning down of Iranian nuclear scientists.
New Iran-linked terror plot uncovered in Azerbaijan
Yaakov Lappin, JPost, Feb 22 2012
The wave of Iranian efforts to attack Israeli interests abroad appears to be continuing, following an announcement by Azerbaijan on Tuesday that it had foiled another plot linked to Tehran and Hezbollah in Baku. The conspiracy involved a cell linked to the IRG Quds Force and Hezbollah, the Azerbaijani Ministry of National Security said, according to state television. Authorities detained the cell’s members and seized firearms and explosives, according to the Azerbaijani TV report. While some news agencies cited the TV report as saying that the targets were “foreign,” a Baku-based reporter for Bloomberg quoted AzTV as saying that the terrorists planned to attack the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural center. Channel 10 cited Azerbaijani media as saying that two Quds Force members were arrested. In addition, around 20 people, mostly from the same family, were arrested in connection with the planned attacks, in a village on the outskirts of Baku, according to the report. The suspects received narcotics from Hezbollah to sell in order to fund the attacks, Channel 10 added. Azerbaijan’s ties to Israel and the US have stoked tensions with neighboring Iran, which protested alleged Israeli intelligence activity in the oil-rich former Soviet republic, ISNA reported recently. Azerbaijan said last month it thwarted a terrorist plot against the Israeli ambassador in Baku by a group linked to Iran. Two men were suspected of plotting to attack the ambassador and a rabbi. Azeri authorities said the two suspects had been helped by an Iranian linked to Iran’s intelligence services, who supplied them with guns and explosives. On Feb 12, Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Azerbaijan of aiding Israeli intelligence in the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist blown up last month, according to the Fars news agency.
Azerbaijan Arrests Hizbullah-Linked Cell
Elad Benari, INN, Feb 22 2012
A month after an attack against Israelis was foiled in Azerbaijan, local authorities have arrested a cell whose members belonged to Hizbullah and held Iranian passports. According to a report on Tuesday by Israel’s Channel 2 News, Azerbaijan police arrested the members of the cell on suspicion of planning to carry out an attack in the country. The report quoted a source in the local Defense Ministry as saying that the arrested men belong to the Iranian intelligence service and to Hizbullah, and that their target was foreign citizens residing in the country. However, it was unclear from the comments whether they specifically targeted Israeli civilians. The report noted that security services in Azerbaijan believe there is a connection to the attack in Delhi last week. According to local police, the arrested men had been gathering intelligence and acquiring weapons. In January, Azerbaijan officials said they uncovered an Iranian-linked cell that plotted to assassinate Chabad rabbis who teach at the Chabad Jewish school in Baku. Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry named one of the members as Balagardash Dadashov, an Azerbaijan citizen who lives in the Iranian city of Ardabil. He and two others, Rasim Farail Aliyev and Ali Alihamza Huseynov, were charged with smuggling weapons and explosives into the country. The National Security Ministry said that Dadashov had contacts with Iranian intelligence agencies and promised Aliyev, his brother-in-law in Ardabil, $150,000 to kill foreigners in Baku “in order to put an end to their public service.” It was later reported that the arrested men were planning an attack against Israeli Ambassador to Azerbaijan Lotem.
