After mosque arson experts state growth of terror threat in Azerbaijan

The attack on the mosque in Baku settlement of Garachukhur was aimed at creating religious-based tension in Azerbaijan and indicates a growing terror threat, experts believe. The incident has proved that even small radical groups can commit resonant crimes, said Khikmet Gadjizade, a political scientist.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that at night on November 26 two unidentified men threw a bottle of Molotov cocktail into the mosque in Garachukhur and fled. According to the State Committee for Work with Religious Structures (SCWRS), both Shiites and Sunnis were praying together in the mosque.

According to Sulkhaddin Akper, a former Deputy Minister for National Security, recent events in the Middle East and involvement of Azerbaijani citizens into them have enhances the terror threat inside the country.

Khikmet Gadjizade, the Head of the Centre for Political and Economic Studies named "Far CENTRE", does not believe that the religious factor in the political life of the country will scale up. In his opinion, the motives for the attack on the mosque "look strange."

"According to the official report, the attackers are associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (know as PKK), which is better known as a nationalist organization. However, they were guided by religious motives. Most likely, everything has mixed up in the heads' and they had no clear objectives," said Gadjizade.

In his turn, Allakhshukyur Pashazade, the Head of the Administration of Caucasian Muslims, has described the religious situation in Azerbaijan as "normal".

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.