The ruling elite has leveraged the bogeyman of Islamic extremism to cast itself as the guardian of a secular and stable Azerbaijani state to rationalize the adoption of more autocratic policies both domestically and internationally.
For years to come, its violent dissolution will loom large in the Armenian consciousness and reverberate across other majority-minority conflicts around the globe.
The apparent easing of U.S.-Azerbaijani tensions has done nothing to slow the wave of arrests that began amid a state media campaign signaling a hunt for "U.S. spies."
The country's main opposition parties have been granted registration by the state after initially being refused. But was it all a trick to delegitimize them among the public?
Amid the growing suppression of the few remaining vocal critics of the government, a fierce campaign has been launched against "no war" activists in Azerbaijan.