Azerbaijan’s security services revealed on Shabbos that it thwarted an Iranian attempt to assassinate Rabbi Shneur Segal, the main Chabad Rav in the country.

In the fall, an Iranian Quds Force commander met with Agil Aslanov, a drug trafficker from Georgia, the Washington Post reported.

The office showed Aslanov a photo of Rabbi Segal and gave him detailed instructions on how to kill him. Aslanov agreed to assassinate him and also attack an education center in exchange for $200,000.

Aslanov traveled to Baku and recruited a local accomplice, and they began to track Rabbi Segal.

The State Security Service said the two men “worked to collect information about a member of a religious community, and sent the location of his residence and workplace to a representative of a foreign special service agency via the appropriate mobile phone application.”

In January, Azerbaijani security services arrested Aslanov and his accomplice and charged them with conspiring to commit a terror act. The plot was revealed at the time but the identity of the “religious figure” was only revealed today.

Segal told the Post that he learned about the plot when everyone else did, from the local media. But he said that he feels safe in Azerbaijan: “We live here peacefully. I walk on the streets here, and there is no fear.”

(YWN’s Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis ha’Shabbos in Israel)