Defense Ministry reveals equipment seized from captured Armenian saboteur
By Akbar Mammadov
Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry has revealed to public the military items seized from the commander of Armenian sabotage and reconnaissance group, Senior Lieutenant Gurgen Alaverdyan, who was captured on August 23.
The ministry has shared the photo of the seized military items in a photo in its official website on August 24.
The sabotage group sought to stage a provocation in the direction of Azerbaijan’s Goranboy district at about 05:45 on August 23.
In the meantime, the Defence Ministry has commented on the Armenian Defence Ministry’s statement that Senior Lieutenant Gurgen Alaverdyan "went missing by losing his way".
“Every time an Armenian citizen guiding a sabotage group or a member of this group is taken prisoner by units of the Azerbaijan Army, the advisory, according to the same scenario, presents these persons as missing and lost village residents with psychical problems, mentally ill persons, shepherds, criminals and drunk people,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry wrote on its Facebook page on August 24.
“If the captured officer was not in military uniform, the Armenian Ministry of Defense would this time also characterize him as a shepherd or a mentally ill person,” the ministry stressed.
Furthermore, the ministry pointed out that if an officer “gets lost” and the public is not informed about it after more than 24 hours, this once again proves the existence of the arbitrariness, lack of dsicipline in the Armenian army, the constant and deliberate concealment of the growing number of crimes and non-combat losses from the public.
The ministry reminded that the Armenian sabotage group’s operation was thwarted as a result of vigilance and professionalism of the Azerbaijani Army.
The ministry reiterated that the military-political leadership of Armenia bears all responsibility for the aggravation of the situation on the line of contact and along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
It should be noted that Armenia has stepped up its military provocation recently, staging sabotage both on the border and on the line of contact. On July 12, Armenian forces shelled Azerbaijan's positions in Tovuz, Azerbaijan's strategically-important district on the border. The Armenian attack killed 12 Azerbaijani servicemen, including an army general, as well as a 76-year-old civilian. Armenian forces retreated after suffering losses in Azerbaijan's retaliation.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.
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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97
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