Financial Times : US Baku embassy ‘target of attack’

US Baku embassy ‘target of attack’

By Isabel Gorst in Moscow and agencies | October 29 2007

The US embassy in Azerbaijan was on full alert on Monday after security forces in the oil-rich republic said it had been the target of a planned attack by a group of radical Islamist fighters captured outside Baku, the capital, at the weekend.

Azerbaijan’s ministry of national security said it had prevented a “large-scale horrifying attack against government structures and diplomatic missions” including the US embassy in Baku. The security forces conducted a swoop near the village of Mashtagi about 20 miles from Baku early on Saturday morning.

“Several people belonging to a Wahhabi group have been detained. They were planning terrorist attacks near the US embassy in Baku,” Arif Babayev, a spokesman for the ministry, told Reuters. One suspect was killed by security forces and several were arrested including an Azerbaijani army officer. Azerbaijan’s ministry of internal affairs later said two men detained near the US embassy on Monday were released after their documents were checked.

A spokesman for the US embassy said: “We went to limited operations on Monday and plan to do so on Tuesday as well.” Consular services halted altogether.

“We are under constant threat everywhere and we are very aware of it,” the spokesman added.

In Washington, the state department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US embassy took “precautionary steps” in response to some “threat information” but declined to describe either the threats or the steps taken. He also said the embassy had not reduced staff, as the state department sometimes does following serious threats.

Authorities in Azerbaijan have in past years arrested dozens of people suspected of links to Islamist militants, but the country has no history of militant violence against western targets. Azerbaijan, with its population of 8m, is a predominantly Muslim republic with borders with Iran, Russia and Georgia.

Azerbaijan’s ministry of national security said an “intense search” was taking place “to neutralise other members of the group”, ­adding that the situation was under control.

The group had a cache of weapons stolen from the army, including four Kalashnikov rifles, 20 hand grenades and other automatic weapons.

BP, the operator of two large oil and gas export projects in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan, said its Baku office had continued working as normal on Monday.

BP’s Azerbaijani fields are the source of oil for parallel oil and gas pipelines from Baku across Azerbaijan and Georgia to Ceyhan on the Turkish Mediterranean, which form a strategic energy corridor for Caspian energy exports to the west.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which occupies offices in the same compound as the British embassy, also continued working as normal.

An EBRD spokesman said: “Some organisations have taken super-precautionary measures, but life is generally continuing as normal.”

Baku was calm on Monday in spite of rumours of a possible attack by members of the group still at large.

The arrests come at a time when Azerbaijan is enjoying economic growth of more than 30 per cent amid a growing oil surge.

However, poverty remains widespread. Human rights groups say Islamist religious groups are gaining influence, particularly among the poor.

Wahhabism originated in Saudi Arabia in the 18th century. It is rooted in the idea of restoring Islam’s purity by purging it of foreign and corrupting influences and is associated in the west with Islamist extremism.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007