Azerbaijan nabs terror cell linked to Iran secret service, Hezbollah
Azerbaijan’s National Security Ministry has nabbed a cell linked to the Iranian secret service Sepah and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group that planned to stage terror attacks on foreign nationals in the country, the Azerbaijani state television channel AzTV quoted the ministry as saying on Tuesday.
The ministry said in a statement that members of the cell had collected intelligence data on orders from Sepah and acquired large quantities of firearms, ammunition and explosives in order to carry out terror acts.
The organized crime group is said to have been set up by a Sepah employee named Hamid and the head of Hezbollah terror organization’s military operations wing called "Resistance", Haji Abbas.
Karbalayi Natig Karimov, a member of the Elders Council in the Nardaran settlement of Baku, a stronghold of Islamic tradition, has told APA news agency that a group of people was seized in Azerbaijan in the past few days on charges of illegal possession of arms, high treason and drug trafficking. He said the group, which was detained in an operation carried out by the National Security Ministry and interior bodies, mostly included residents of Baku villages, particularly, Nardaran.
He said he knows the 20 people who were detained. "Most of them are our relatives and close people."
The detainees include Anar Bayramli, who is said to be the reporter of Iran’s Sahar TV channel and the Iranian Fars news agency in Azerbaijan, and Ramil Dadashov, the driver for Sahar TV’s office in Sumgayit.
The Iranian embassy has issued a protest to Azerbaijan, demanding their immediate release and claiming that their detention runs counter to international norms, Fars reported.