BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 19. Investigative and operational activities are underway in a criminal case over the crimes of the Armenian armed formations, Spokesperson for the State Security Service of Azerbaijan Tamerlan Rahimov said at a briefing, Trend reports.
"On September 19, 2023, at about 04:30 (GMT +4), on a newly built tunnel road near the village of Taghavard, Khojavand district, a KAMAZ truck carrying employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, as a result of a terrorist act, was blown up by a mine set by a sabotage group of Armenian separatist troops on the territory of Azerbaijan, where Russian peacekeepers are temporarily stationed [under the trilateral statement signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war]," Rahimov noted.
"The vehicle headed to the site where a terrorist act took place on the 58th kilometer of the new Ahmadbayli-Fuzuli-Shusha highway, which resulted in the death of the State Agency of Azerbaijan Automobile Roads (AAYDA). As a result of the vehicle explosion, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Asim Jamalzade, born on February 5, 1994, Ramil Shirinov, born on July 8, 1987, Seymur Mahmudov, born on July 12, 1991 and Khazar Zamanov, born on July 21, 1998 died at the scene," the official also said.
He pointed out the Main Investigation Department of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan initiated criminal proceedings under articles 120.2.1, 120.2.4, 120.2.7, 120.2.10, 120.2.11, 120.2. 12 (premeditated murder of two or more persons committed repeatedly by an organized group with particular cruelty or in a generally dangerous manner, combined with robbery, extortion and terrorism motivated by ethnic hatred and enmity), 214.2.1, 214.2.2, 214. 2.3 (terrorism with repeated use of firearms, explosives or explosive devices by an organized group), 228.3 (illegal acquisition, transfer, sale, storage, transportation or carrying of firearms, their component parts, ammunition, explosives or explosive devices committed by a group of persons by prior agreement) and other articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Rahimov added that complex investigative and operational measures are being carried out in the criminal case, and the public will be provided with additional information on its progress.
In order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement, to stop large-scale provocations in the Karabakh economic region, to disarm and withdraw formations of the Armenian armed forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, to neutralize their military infrastructure, to ensure the safety of the peaceful population returning to the territories liberated from occupation, civil servants involved in construction and reconstruction works, and our military personnel, as well as to restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan, anti-terrorist measures have been launched in the region.
Only military targets belonging to illegal armed formations of the separatist regime are put out of action with the use of high-precision weapons available in the arsenal of the Azerbaijani Army.
Civilians and infrastructure objects are not targets during localized anti-terrorist activities carried out in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region.