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US State Department: Azerbaijan has done significant work toward combating terrorism

01 May 2008 08:42 (UTC +04:00)

It has closed organizations that were suspected of supporting terrorist groups and arrested at least 39 persons from three separate terrorist-associated groups, on terrorism-related chargesâ€, reads in the annual report of US State Department on the anti-terrorism activities in the world countries in 2007.
â€œSince August 2003, Azerbaijan has supported peacekeeping operations in Iraq with an infantry company of approximately 150 soldiers stationed at the Haditha Dam. A platoon of Azerbaijani soldiers has worked with the Turkish peacekeeping contingent in Afghanistan since November 2002â€.
The State Department emphasized that while Azerbaijan has taken steps to combat terrorist financing and identify possible terrorist-related funding by distributing lists of suspected terrorist groups and individuals to local banks, comprehensive legislation to counter terrorist financing has not yet passed parliament. â€œIn December 2006, an inter-ministerial experts group responsible for drafting anti-money laundering and counterterrorist finance legislation through the President’s office provided its most recent draft to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Council of Europe; the Department of Justice provided comments on the law and discussed it with Azerbaijani government officials. The government has not yet presented the draft law to parliamentâ€. Successful operations conducted by the Azerbaijani law-enforcement bodies for combating terrorism have also been focused in the report.
â€œIn February, Azerbaijani authorities arrested a group of 15 Azerbaijani citizens in Baku who called themselves the Northern Mahdi Army. The group was charged with having ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). In October, the group went before a closed trial. According to the Azerbaijani Ministry of National Security, one of the group members had met an IRGC officer in Iran, and was offered money to fight against the United States, Israel and other Western countries.
During security sweeps in late October and early November, a group of twelve Azerbaijanis, reportedly led by an ethnic Arab named Abu Jafar, were arrested in Sumgayit, Azerbaijan on terrorism-related chargesâ€.
â€œSeparately, in November, 11 Azerbaijani citizens were arrested over a number of days in connection with a late October threat against the U.S. Embassy in Baku, which resulted in the embassy working at limited staffing for two daysâ€, reads in the report.