Azernews.Az

A group of Azerbaijani security officers have been awarded by President Ilham Aliyev for carrying out a successful operation to neutralize a cell planning terror attacks in the country.

According to the presidential decree, Lieut.-Col. Elshad Guliyev of the National Security Ministry`s special troops, who was killed in shootouts with the militants in the second-largest city of Ganja last week, was posthumously conferred with the Azerbaijani Flag order. Other members of the ``Eagle`` special troops squad received medals For Motherland, For Heroism and For Military Service.

The National Security Ministry said in a statement last Friday that 17 members of the armed group masterminding a number of terror attacks had been nabbed by security officers across the country. The ministry did not cite details about the members of the armed group.

It said that during the special operations, carried out in Baku, Ganja and Sumgayit -- the country`s largest cities -- as well as in Gakh, Zagatala, Shaki and Gusar regions, large quantities of arms, including machine guns, submachine guns, pistols, hand grenades, remotely controlled explosives, and communication devices were impounded from the detainees.

The ministry also said that one security officer was killed and three others were wounded during the clashes in Ganja. One militant was killed, another injured, and two others were seized after several hours of shootouts.

An explosive was reportedly found on the killed militant`s body and rendered harmless.

A Radio Liberty correspondent at the scene said several armed individuals had been holed up in an apartment block surrounded by security forces.

Police at the scene said the armed men opened fire at law enforcement officers and were detained after shootouts.

Azerbaijan has faced unprecedented terror attacks since the 1990s. These attacks, which killed, injured and disabled thousands of innocent people, have been committed both on and under the ground -- on roads and railways, in the subway, as well as in the air and at sea. The goal pursued by the perpetrators was to split and destroy the newly independent Azerbaijan, which after the Soviet collapse in 1991 was aspiring to integrate into Europe and the whole world. Behind this plan were Russia`s then authorities, Armenia and Iran, and each of them was awaiting its piece of prey. These subversions reached the peak of their intensity in June 1993. In these hard times, the Azerbaijani people elected as their leader Heydar Aliyev, who not only defended Azerbaijan`s sovereignty, but also managed to pave the way for supplying oil and gas from the resource-rich Caspian region to world markets. Aliyev could not be frightened or swayed from his path by a single hostile force, not even by the attempts made on his life. But, very unfortunately, the forces opposed to Azerbaijan`s pursuing an independent policy have not yet put an end to their attempts to commit terror acts and subversions against the country.

And before tension subsided after the arrests in March of 22 people said to be linked to the Iranian secret service on suspicion of plotting attacks on foreign diplomatic missions in Baku, another terror cell has been nabbed in Azerbaijan. This time, the terror group could apparently be traced not to the south of the country, but to the north…