Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan`s National Security Ministry says several terrorist attacks, including ones targeting President Ilham Aliyev and the venue of the Eurovision song contest in Baku, were thwarted by the South Caucasus nation`s secret services.

Officials said the attacks were planned by ``a transnational terrorist group led by Vugar Padarov``.

Padarov was quoted by Azerbaijani officials in April as a suspected Islamist militant allied with Al-Qaeda.

Padarov has been killed in a shoot-out with security operatives, and some 40 members of the terrorist group were arrested and their weapons confiscated in raids inside Azerbaijan, including along the border with Russia`s volatile republic of Daghestan, according to officials.

They say Padarov`s group planned attacks targeting President Aliyev during his visit to the north-western regions of the country in April and Baku Crystal Hall, where the semifinals and finals of the Eurovision Song Contest were held between May 22 and 26. The National Security Ministry said the terror group also planned to stage explosions in crowded public places frequented by foreign nationals, in particular, Hilton and Mariott hotels in the center of Baku.

The ministry said in a statement issued last Wednesday that the armed group, which underwent special training and was equipped with various types of weapons, aimed to commit a number of terrorist attacks in several regions of Azerbaijan to provoke chaos, fear and confusion among the public. It also sought to foment stand-off on ethnic and religious grounds, to disrupt stability and damage Azerbaijan`s image in the international arena. In pursuit of their goals, members of the group planned to orchestrate armed attacks on the buildings of law enforcement agencies and murders of their employees in order to seize weapons and ammunition, and blow up a number of religious sites, mosques and places of worship of other faiths.

After committing the terror attacks the armed group intended to hide in the areas bordering on Daghestan and mountain forests, in the previously prepared shelters. It was also planned that members of the group would act jointly with additional sabotage forces that were to come from Daghestan.

Investigators also established that the terror group was given orders and money by the ``Council of Emirs of Daghestan``, a Daghestan-based group, to carry out jihad in Azerbaijan.