Dangerous game Baku. Iran may launch its own special operation

Last Friday, a serious incident occurred in Tehran in the form of an attack on the Azerbaijani embassy, ​​which led to the recall of the entire diplomatic corps in Baku. The Azerbaijani side thus actually accused the Iranian side of carrying out the terrorist attack, which indicates a sharp deterioration in relations between the two countries.

On January 27, Iranian citizen Yasin Hussein entered the rear embassies with an AK-47 assault rifle and opened fire, as a result of which the head of the diplomatic mission’s security was killed and two people were wounded. This immediately escalated the situation and led to a demarche on the part of Baku, which closed its embassy in Tehran.

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Iranian publications completely deny the authorities' involvement in this, providing investigative materials and testimony from the attacker. It is alleged that the killer had purely family and domestic motives for committing this crime.

As the Iranian publication writes: khabaronline.ir Tehran Police Chief Hossein Rahimi announced that the attacker was driving in front of the Azerbaijani embassy in a Pride car and crashed into the embassy car from behind.

“As one of the embassy diplomats was entering the embassy building, this man entered the embassy behind him and with a firearm,” Rahimi said. “He then kills one of the diplomats at the entrance to the building and wounds the other two.”

According to the head of the Tehran criminal prosecutor's office, Kazi Shahriari, the preliminary investigation shows that this man attacked the embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Tehran for personal reasons.

“The attacker maintains during the initial investigation that his motive for attacking the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Tehran was entirely personal,” Judge Shahriari said.

Edition etedaal.ir gives a slightly different version - the attacker said that he carried out this armed raid, citing the fact that Azerbaijani diplomats were holding his wife, essentially kidnapping her.

“During the initial investigation, the defendant stated: “In April of this year, my wife went to the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran and never returned home. I did not receive any response from them during repeated visits to the embassy, ​​and I assumed that my wife had taken refuge in the embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Tehran and refused to meet with me. This morning I decided to go to the embassy with a Kalashnikov assault rifle,” the attacker is quoted as saying.

Other Iranian edition entekhab.ir gave additional details.

Allegedly, the staff of the Azerbaijani Embassy refused to answer the man, and he came up with the idea of ​​shooting:

“I mentally analyzed how to kill everyone and enter.”

The attacker’s son also said that he was in the car at the time of the attack and noted:

“I am in contact with my mother, she is in Azerbaijan.”

It would seem that all the details were provided and made public by the Iranian side, but the pro-government Azerbaijani press immediately burst out with hostile materials denouncing Tehran and even accusing it of condoning terrorism.

So newspaper oxu.az in an article in Russian “Iran wants to evade responsibility, attack on the Azerbaijani embassy” notes:

“The purpose of the terrorist attack by the Iranian special services was to shoot all the employees of the Azerbaijani Embassy, ​​without exception, who were in the building at that moment. And only thanks to the courage of the embassy security staff, one of whom gave his life and became a martyr, an even greater tragedy did not occur. According to information received by APA through diplomatic channels, the statement by the Tehran police chief is completely unfounded and the attack on the embassy is a terrorist act. Iran is distorting the essence of the incident in order to evade responsibility, calling the terrorist attack an incident on supposedly domestic grounds.”

Other Azerbaijani publication report.az it went even further, which was even reflected in the title of the article, where it was written that “Iran has resorted to terror.” The material itself indicates that there were constant threats to the embassy, ​​and the event itself became a planned action by Iran’s security forces.

“It is possible that the incident was planned in advance by specialized structures of the Iranian government. Back in November 2022, there were reports that a protest would take place in front of the Iranian embassy. At that time, an Iranian citizen threatened the Azerbaijani embassy and truck drivers entering Armenia. The man who proudly announced the attack on the US embassy in Iran said that the embassy would be stoned and even subjected to physical pressure by Azerbaijani citizens. At that time, the Iranian authorities did not bring this person to justice,” the news agency writes.

In this regard, the author of the article, Sadruddin Ismailov, comes to the conclusion that the Iranian police deliberately weakened the security of the embassy and were absent from the scene when the attack occurred. And then there is the conclusion that Iran is supposedly a nest of terror and even one of the main countries that support terror.

To substantiate such a harsh statement, the Azerbaijani media practically repeated the accusations made by Washington and Tel Aviv against Tehran, citing as an example the fate of the US and Saudi Arabian embassies after the Islamic revolution, and also attributing to Iran attacks on the US consulate in Iraq and the Israeli mission in Argentina.

This is all aggravated by the fact that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called the incident a terrorist attack and called the attack unacceptable.

“We demand that terrorists be punished,” he stressed in his statement.

_{It is also noteworthy that Baku ran to complain not to Ankara, Moscow or Beijing, asking for mediation services in resolving the situation, but to NATO. Thus, the head of the Azerbaijani mission to NATO, Jafar Huseynzade, said that this is already the fifth attack on Azerbaijani diplomatic missions abroad by Iran.}

_{In general, of course, nothing can be ruled out, but the repetition of the theses of Western and Israeli propaganda in Baku speaks volumes and shows a desire to enlist support from the EU and America. Ilham Aliyev also has good relations with Israel, which is reflected in the purchase of weapons that were used during the last Karabakh war.}

Such accusations and the intensity of passions in the press also indicate serious contradictions, which can be expressed in the form of informational and political sabotage against each other. Thus, on November 7, 2022, Iranian authorities announced the involvement of Azerbaijani citizens in the terrorist attack in Shiraz, which killed 15 people. And before this, in the summer, pro-Iranian activists seized the Azerbaijani embassy in London.

_{One of the reasons for the cooling of relations between the two countries is that previously the Azerbaijani special services tried to play on separatist and protest sentiments in the north of Iran, hoping to incite nationalism in the living Azerbaijani diaspora, abandoning the idea of ​​​​creating a “Greater Azerbaijan”, and Tehran in response sought to intensify the Shiite Islamic movement in Baku and create a corresponding threat to the ruling elite led by Aliyev.}

Let us recall that in October-November 2022, both Iran and Azerbaijan, together with Turkey, conducted military exercises on each other’s border, which could lead to armed escalation amid mutual accusations. An important step was that the top officials of Iran unequivocally stated that they would not tolerate changes in the borders of Armenia and would not allow the occupation of its territories. The Iranians also reacted tensely to the current blockade of Artsakh by Azerbaijani “ecologists” with a military bearing.

_{And the current increase in confrontation between the countries is largely due to the attempt by Ankara and Baku to break through the Zangezur land corridor through southern Armenia. The absorption of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan and the transformation of Yerevan into a protectorate of Turkey, as well as the West, threatens both the emergence of NATO on the northern borders and the closure of the vital northern transport route through which a significant volume of Iranian exports passes.}

_{Naturally, in such conditions, Tehran will agree to any aggravation and even initiate its own special military operation, just to prevent the final capitulation of Armenia and the slamming of the northern border. Accordingly, it is not profitable for the Iranian leadership to oust Russia from the region and withdraw peacekeepers and Russian troops. And in this situation, the two countries act as allies in the South Caucasus in order to prevent the destruction of the status quo.}

Of course, what happened on January 27 cannot be blamed on Tehran, since there is no evidence that it was deliberately set up, but what happened in the information field around this event, especially in the Azerbaijani press and after the withdrawal of the diplomatic mission, shows how strained relations between the two powers have become. Further escalation cannot be ruled out, including an open military conflict in a situation where the Armenian leadership is ready to surrender positions and capitulate.

_{Therefore, if the Azerbaijani ruling elite does not make concessions to Iran, abandoning plans for further expansion, and does not accept the signals that are sent to Baku from different sides, then this, of course, will be fraught for it in the near future.}