Caspian Security Briefing: Azerbaijan

Опубликовано на EGF: 19.02.2010

by Публикация EGF

The former-Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan has attracted a notable degree of attention amongst the international investor community due to the impressive potential of its hydrocarbons sector. The country’s vast (and still largely untapped) oil and gas fields, located in the strategically important Caspian Sea basin, provide the source for major energy transport arteries such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. Future energy transport projects of strategic relevance to the European Union, such as the planned NABUCCO gas pipeline, also figure on connecting into Azerbaijan’s impressive subsoil energy resources, particularly the gargantuan Shah Deniz II gas field. But while Baku has succeeded in becoming a hub for the regional energy industry, and whilst prior to the global recession Azerbaijan was experiencing some of the highest rates of (economic) growth in the former-Soviet Union, the country likewise suffers from many similar ailments hampering development and exacerbating investor risks to those found in other post-Soviet Republics. These include widespread corruption, threats of violence and disruption to domestic political stability cultivated by the spectre of terrorism, and troublesome border relations with neighbouring countries.

Azerbaijan was embroiled in a costly war with neighbouring Armenia over a disputed strip of land in the Ngorno-Karabakh region at the start of the 1990s, and relations between the two countries have failed to normalise since that time. In fact, like India’s perpetual conflict with Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region, Azerbaijan and Armenia have long remained on the brink of war, with border skirmishes taking place between the military forces of the two countries with relative frequency. At the time of this writing (February 18), the Azeri and Armenian militaries were exchanging fire in several border regions, including Borsunlu, Gapanli villages of Terter region, Tapgaragoyunlu village of Goranboy and the former-Gulchuluk sovkhoz of Aghdam region. The skirmishes resulted in the deaths of (at least) two Azeri soldiers, reportedly killed by Armenian snipers, whilst three further Azeri soldiers were wounded. Armenia continues to occupy the territory of the disputed Ngorno-Karabakh region which Azerbaijan claims as part of its own. The two countries have been unable to find a solution to the dispute through diplomatic channels and hawkish political voices, particularly in Azerbaijan, frequently call for an escalation to full scale military hostilities as the preferred method of returning the disputed territories into the fold of Azeri sovereignty.

Whilst the unresolved conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia continues to threaten the region’s stability, like Russia and other post-Soviet states, the threat level which Azerbaijan faces from domestic terrorism is likewise hardly insignificant. Last month, the trial of 31 suspects accused of association with a network of international terrorist cells and attempts to overthrow the government recommenced in Baku. The ongoing trial revealed an inter-linkage of alleged terrorist related activities spanning the entire Caucasus region, involving a multiple-cell terror network active in Azerbaijan, the neighbouring Russian Federation Republics of Dagestan and Chechnya, and the Georgian break-away region of Abkhazia. Suspects were accused of several counts of attempted assassination, participation in the formation of illegally armed militant groups, attempted terrorism involving high calibre firearms, illegal trafficking and manufacture of such firearms, as well as participating in the narcotics trade.

Suspects faced accusation in connection with the bombings of the Abu-Bakr Mosque in Baku, in August 2008, where an unknown assailant hurled a grenade into the packed building through a window, killing two worshippers and injuring nine others (particularly in assisting those accused of the bombing of fleeing Azerbaijan). Suspects likewise faced accusation in connection with plans to blow up the Baku-Novorosiisk (Russia) oil pipeline, waging guerrilla combat against Russian Federation troops in Abkhazia, Chechnya and Dagestan, and belonging to illegal, violent armed structures, particularly the “Karabakh Partisans” (led by Rovshan Badalov) and “Brothers of the Forest” (led by Semir Mehdiev, aka Suleiman, who is wanted in connection with the Abu-Bakr Mosque bombing). While Azerbaijan is predominantly perceived to be a Muslim country of a secular orientation, authorities tend to cluster a large part of the country’s terrorist threat around extreme interpretations of Wahabbi Islam, which has found its way into Azerbaijan from the Arabian Peninsula since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Azeri authorities have not chosen to ban Wahabbism in the country, however, in acknowledgement of the many pious Azeris who practice Wahabbism non-violently, alongside followers of the more conventional Sunni and Shi’ite schools of Islam, which remain more prevalent. On the other hand, while the Azeri authorities show little tolerance for militant Wahabbi manifestations of Islam in Azerbaijan, experts suggest that the Azeri regime tends to exacerbate (if not artificially create) the threat of Islamic extremism in order to justify the democratic deficit which (the West recognises) exists in the country. This tends to further exacerbate violence and tension in Azerbaijan, given that the Islamists tend to be vocal critics of corruption involving state-bureaucrats[1], exposing and denouncing such practices, and ultimately winning widespread sympathy for the less militant forms of Islamic extremism. Taking into account state repression of many Azeri youths increasingly associated with Islam, experts suggest that religious radicalism (and the pan-Caucasus Islamic Wahabbi trend) is only likely to proliferate further in the country in the near term.

 |  Безопасность, Энергетика  |  Каспий и Средняя Азия