Azerbaijan Has Allowed a Mossad Base to Monitor Iran
While official Azerbaijan continues to deny warnings that it is preparing to launch military attacks on Armenia and Artsakh, its defense ministry is reporting that during military drills this week its armed forces tested advanced Israeli-made missiles.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported this week that Azerbaijani air cargo flights to an Israeli base used for arms exports have spiked in recent weeks. Armenian official have been warning international players about Azerbaijani troop build up on the border with Armenia and the line-of-contact with Artsakh.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry on Wednesday reported that the military drills, included the live-firing of the Israeli made Barak-8 ER air defense system. According to the statement, the Barak-8 detected and destroyed a ballistic missile “launched by an imaginary enemy.”
Israel continues to strengthen its alliance with Azerbaijan and over the years has sold billions of dollars in weapons to Baku. In return, Haaretz reported, Azerbaijan is supplying Israel with oil and access to Iran—Israel’s number one regional foe.
According to official reports from Azerbaijan, over the years, Israel has sold Baku its most advanced weapons systems, including ballistic missiles, air defense and electronic warfare systems, kamikaze drones and more.
In 2017, Israeli Aerospace Industries found itself in hot water when its experts live-tested a drone hitting targets in Artsakh.
Cargo flights from Israeli base to Baku (as of March 2023). Since then 11 more have landed (Photo by Yarden Antebi for Haaretz)
Haaretz, citing foreign media sources, reported that Azerbaijan has allowed the Mossad to set up a forward branch to monitor what is happening in Iran, and has even prepared an airfield intended to aid Israel in the case it decides to attack Iranian nuclear sites.
Reports from two years ago stated that the Mossad agents who stole the Iranian nuclear archive smuggled it to Israel via Azerbaijan, Haaretz said.
An investigation by Haaretz in March revealed that over the past seven years, 92 cargo flights flown by Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines have landed at the Ovda airbase, the only airfield in Israel through which explosives may be flown into and out of the country. The investigation found the number of flights spiked during the 2020 Artsakh war.
Since March, there have been 11 more Azeri flights, including 5 in the past two weeks, totaling 103 flights in seven years.
