Armed Conflict at the Border of Azerbaijan and Iran

The border guard of Azerbaijan has announced that in a clash between its forces and a group of eight to ten individuals at the border with Ardabil province, five people have been killed. According to the Azerbaijani border guard, the group, which intended to illegally enter Iran from Azerbaijan, opened fire and fled after being warned by Azerbaijani forces. This report, published on Sunday, March 13, indicates that the border guards pursued the individuals following their gunfire, resulting in the deaths of five citizens of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani border guard stated that this incident occurred in the village of 'Dashkend' in the 'Yardimli' region at the border of Ardabil province. No information about the motives of these individuals has been released yet, but the Azerbaijani border guard claims that these armed individuals intended to smuggle a 'Bangladeshi group' into Iran. Efforts to save the injured individuals were unsuccessful. Two individuals have been arrested in this clash, while the others are still at large. The shooting incident between the mentioned group and the Azerbaijani border guard occurred just one day after the transfer of 21 Iranian prisoners in Azerbaijan to Tehran authorities. The occurrence of this clash at the Iran-Azerbaijan border comes at a time when on March 10, Brigadier General Qasem Rezaei, the commander of Iran's border guard, visited Azerbaijan and met with the head of the border guard of that country as well as with Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan. After this meeting, he stated in a media interview that in the past 11 months, Iranian border guards had prevented the entry of 600 kilograms of drugs into Azerbaijan and arrested 50 traffickers. Azerbaijani officials claim that 90 percent of the Iranian nationals detained in their prisons are related to drug trafficking.