Eurasianet

There is a widespread belief in Baku that the attack may have been connected to Azerbaijan’s growing relationship with Israel.

The embassy's chief of security was shot dead, and two other staff were wounded. The attack comes amid Azerbaijan's increasingly strained relations with Iran and blossoming friendship with Iran's archrival Israel.

The drills included a crossing of the river that forms the Azerbaijan-Iran border, mirroring the threat that Iran’s armed forces had made weeks earlier.

Questioning the territorial integrity of the neighboring country, once a taboo topic, is increasingly entering official discourse both in Baku and Tehran.

The arrests come as tension between Baku and Tehran has been reaching a peak.

Dushanbe apparently began producing Iranian drones under license earlier this year.

Tehran appears alarmed both by Azerbaijan’s saber-rattling against Armenia and by a new EU monitoring mission to Armenia’s border with Iran.

Kazakhstan’s largest bank has also suspended use of a popular Russian payment card.

Baku is venturing ever closer to openly promoting secession for Iran’s large ethnic Azerbaijani minority.

It was the latest in a string of arrests of people accused of smuggling in the territories Azerbaijan recaptured from Armenia in the 2020 war.

Dushanbe regularly used to accuse Tehran of supporting militant activity, but no longer.

Is Azerbaijan promoting Iranian separatism? Is Iran harboring Azerbaijani Islamists?

But Kazakhstan has more to lose.

The route is an alternative to a corridor crossing Armenia, one of Azerbaijan’s key demands since the 2020 ceasefire.

As anti-Russian sentiment rises in Georgia, the many Russians here share Georgians’ shock and disgust at what is happening in Ukraine.