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Two police killed in ‘Islamist’ clashes in Azerbaijan: ministry
BAKU, July 11, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Two police officers were killed in clashes
with “radical Islamists” in Azerbaijan’s second city of Ganja, with
authorities arresting 40 people, the Caucasus nation said late Tuesday.
“Some 200 supporters of a radical religious movement attempted to stage
riots outside a local government building in Ganja,” on Tuesday evening, the
interior ministry said in a statement.
“Two officers were killed,” it said, adding that police took half an hour
“to restore order in central Ganja”.
Forty protesters were arrested, the ministry said.
APA news agency reported the clashes broke out in support of a man who was
arrested last week in Ganja on suspicion of shooting and wounding the city’s
mayor.
Prosecutors said the man, Unis Safarov, was a member of a “radical
religious organisation” that plotted “terrorist acts aimed at sowing chaos in
Azerbaijan, with the ultimate goal of seizing power and establishing a Sharia
rule”.
Safarov, a 35-year-old Russian national, underwent military training in
Iran and Syria in 2016, they said.
A mainly Shiite Muslim country, ex-Soviet Azerbaijan is one of the most
secular states in the Islamic world.
The oil-rich nation has earned a reputation for political stability under
the authoritarian rule of the Aliyev dynasty.
President Ilham Aliyev’s government appears concerned about a rise in
Islamist militancy in the country, which some commentators blaming mainly
Shiite Iran.
The authorities have sought to clamp down in an attempt to stem the rise of
Islamist extremism, but Muslim critics have accused the security forces of
persecuting devout believers.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1246 hrs