Azerbaijan said on Monday its security service has arrested dozens of individuals belonging to a spy network operated against its national security by Iranian intelligence services.
A video posted on the official channel of the State Security Service shows confessions by the arrested individuals, including a sea captain of the Caspian Sea Oil Fleet, who "to the detriment of the sovereignty and defense capability of the Republic of Azerbaijan, collected and transferred via different channels [to Iran] information about foreign ships and companies, naval exercises, oil platforms, cargo transportation".
Many of the arrested were recruited through manipulation, religious education, training, cash and social media. They were ordered to take photos of military facilities and collect information about location, movement and specification of military aircraft and vehicles.
"The network was employed to spread radical, religious-extremist ideas against human rights recognized in modern international law and a secular state", the service said in a statement.
The new raid comes after another 19 members "trained and funded by Iran in order to spy for its intelligence services" were arrested early November.
Touted as the most secular Muslim-majority country, Azerbaijan is sandwiched between Russia and Iran and has been carefully balancing its foreign policy in the past 3 decades.
Armed with high-tech Israeli and Turkish drones, Azerbaijani forces during a 44-day war reclaimed control of large swaths of its territory occupied by Armenia since the early 1990s before Russia brokered a cease-fire in November 2020.
Iran often threatens Azerbaijan over its ties with Israel and the US, and has, along with Russia, supported Armenia against Azerbaijan.
Iran is overly sensitive to Azerbaijan’s independence from the Soviet Union due to its own sizeable ethnic Azerbaijani population, estimated at up to 40 million strong, whom it has been accused of depriving of the right of education in their mother tongue, suppressing dissent and attempting to erase their sense of belonging to the shared cultural heritage with Azerbaijan.
After Azerbaijan won the war against Armenia, Iran fears the stronger Azerbaijan might inspire its Azerbaijani population to seek independence, or this vulnerability might be used by its arch foes Israel or the United States to brew a domestic civil unrest.
Over the past weeks Iranian clerics have lined up to threaten Azerbaijan with “the might of Iran”, warning against closer ties with “the enemies of Iran”.
