Azerbaijan’s security service announced on Tuesday that officers arrested two suspects for allegedly plotting to assassinate a senior “religious figure” in the country.

According to the statement, the suspects acted on behalf of a foreign state, with sources in the Jewish kehilla in Azerbaijan saying that the foreign state was Iran and the senior “religious figure” was a Jew, Kan News reported.

Security services said that Ogil Aslanov, a criminal involved in drug trafficking, traveled to a foreign country and met with local security officials who presented him with a picture of “a member of a religious community in Azerbaijan” and offered him $200,000 to assassinate him.

Upon his return to Baku, Aslanov contacted another suspect, Jeyhun Ismayilov, a Georgian citizen, and the two began stalking the Jewish target, until they were arrested.

The official statement did not provide specific details about the identity of the potential victim or the country behind the plot, but sources in the Azerbaijani Jewish community told Kan that the suspects were planning to murder a well-known member of the kehilla involved in fostering Israel-Azerbaijan relations who is often quoted in the Israeli media.

According to a source in the Jewish community, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are working to establish terrorist infrastructure in the country, with Jewish and Israeli targets as their foremost targets. As a result, Azerbaijani security services have implemented significant measures to bolster security in Jewish and Israeli institutions across the country.

There are about 30,000 Jews who call Azerbaijan their home, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

In recent years, Iran, which shares a border with Azerbaijan, has repeatedly attempted to harm Jewish and Israeli targets in Azerbaijan (as well as countries in central Asia).

Following Israel’s elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran on July 31, 2024, the IDF issued an order categorically banning all off-duty IDF soldiers from staying in the countries of Azerbaijan and neighboring Georgia, fearing Iranian retaliatory attacks.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)