FANTOMAS UNLEASHED

Since the first days of Russia's peacekeeping operation in Daghlig Garabagh, many experts have noted the state of the roads in this region as one of the most significant, delicate, and sensitive issues. Garabagh is a mountainous and wooded region with few roads used by both Armenians and Azerbaijanis. On the highways, especially the ones crossing the peacekeeping zone, there are joint posts.

One of these posts near the village of Dashalty was chosen as a point for a terrorist attack. On November 13, a certain Norayr Mirzoyan (1975) threw a grenade at Azerbaijani and Russian troopers at a checkpoint near the village along the Khankendi-Lachin road, having injured three people, including an Azerbaijani sergeant, Hafiz Nasibov. The attacker was detained by Russian peacekeepers.

There is still no clear answer whether Mirzoyan committed the act alone or not. Moreover, the situation in the region on the anniversary of Armenia's surrender has become quite tense. It is not only about the rallies that raged in Yerevan. On November 8, Armenians furiously accused Azerbaijanis of having shot a group of peaceful plumbers near the city of Shusha!

Baku immediately responded with explanations. “This is yet another provocation of Armenia. They claim that on November 8 these individuals were fixing the water supply line near the Khankendi-Shusha highway. Please note that usually the Russian peacekeepers are informed about the planned works in advance. Then they monitor the implementation of the works. This time, the Russian peacekeepers were not provided with any information, nor were they involved in the work process. This obviously raises serious questions. Also, on the same day, we had an event in Shusha attended by the President of Azerbaijan, and a group of government officials. In such cases, it is customary to take enhanced security measures on the territory. That said, conducting repair works on the water supply line at a location near the controlled territory seems illogical," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan stated.

When terrorists are glorified

It is commonly accepted that a system is characterised not by its proneness to error, but by a reaction to it. The reaction of Armenians to the terrorist attack in Dashalty confirms this maxima. Armenians immediately declared Norayr Mirzoyan a hero in social networks and Telegram. He is ranked as one of those ‘heroes’ who are usually called terrorists in the civilised world.

To prove this, let’s look at this quote from one of the popular Armenian Telegram channels closely associated with the leadership of the Armenian separatists in Khankendi: “It is strange that some characterise such things as a new model of behaviour, whereas this nation had Tehlirian and the Lisbon comrades. Given the number of "concessions" [we have made so far], Mirzoyan presented us an alternative scenario today. He did what no one expected from the Armenians.”; “People like Norair can be bright examples for us, if we really want to return what belongs to us and not endure further."

The ‘Lisbon comrades’ are five Armenian terrorists who were killed during the attack on the Turkish embassy in Portugal on July 27, 1983. Armenians consider them almost holy martyrs. On March 15, 1921, Solomon Tehlirian shot and killed the former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Young Turk government, Talaat Pasha, in Berlin.

Another ‘bright example’ is Monte Melkonian, a well-known terrorist, head of the ASALA Revolutionary Movement in Western Europe, who was sentenced to six years in prison in France back in 1985. Granted parole in 1990, he arrived in Armenia to continue his terrorist activities. During the occupation of the Khojavend district of Azerbaijan, Monte Melkonyan was the commander of an Armenian terrorist unit and was ultimately killed in Daghlig Garabagh in 1993. In Yerevan, his funeral was attended by officials, including the President of Armenia. One of the sabotage centres of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia is named after this international terrorist, who is declared a national hero of Armenia.

All these facts indicate the scale of the cult of terror in Armenia. But experts remind: it's not just about posts on social networks. In fact, Armenia is steadily turning into a real hornet's nest of terrorists.

It’s all about specialists

Less than two weeks before the terrorist attack in Dashalty, Ambik Sassunyan arrived in Armenia for permanent residence. He is the same guy who shot the Turkish diplomat Kemal Arikan in his car at a traffic light in Los Angeles, CA on January 28, 1982. The US court sentenced him to life imprisonment without the right to appeal. His petition for clemency was rejected twice, in 2006 and 2010. But then the American justice changed its mind. On December 27, 2019, the pardon commission of the State of California granted Sassunyan's parole. Although Governor Gavin Newsom rejected the petition, on February 24, 2021, the Los Angeles County Supreme Court overturned the governor's decision and the assassin of the Turkish diplomat was released. Then he moved to Armenia, where he was greeted as a hero.

Sassunyan is not the only precedent of this kind. Varuzhan Karapetyan moved to Armenia long ago. In July 1983, he tried to plant a bomb on a Turkish Airlines passenger flight in France. Although the flight was postponed, the bomb went off at the Paris Orly Airport, having killed eight people...

Back in the late 1980s, French media reported the facts of Armenian terrorists with combat experience moving to Armenia. Moreover, they have plenty of local followers—from Norayr Mirzoyan to the five headed by Nairi Hunanyan, who committed a massacre in the Armenian parliament on October 27, 1999. Yet another act of terrorism by the Sasna Tsrer armed group, which seized a police precinct in Yerevan in the summer of 2016, is also noteworthy. Among other things, it demonstrated that the Armenian security forces are simply not able to resist terrorists.

Today many experts reasonably believe that all the conditions for the start of a terrorist war have developed in Armenia.

Terrorist revenge

Armenian political terror emerged at the turn of the 20th century. There was an impressive wave of Armenian terror in the 1970s-1980s with more than 40 Turkish diplomats as victims of terrorist attacks. There is plenty of information in open sources about the largest Armenian terrorist acts. There are many publications that Armenian terrorists declared themselves ‘avengers’ for the so-called Armenian Genocide, that they actively cooperated with their colleagues from European left-wing radical groups, including the RAF, and even with the radical Islamists.

In the 1980s-1990s, amid the conflict in Garabagh, Azerbaijan also fell a victim of the Armenian terror. It can take a long time to list all the explosions in buses, trains, and in the Baku metro.

The Armenian terror was very often used and is still used today as a kind of surrogate for war. And also as a means of revenge for the lost war.

Who will the Armenian terrorists take revenge on today? Possible targets include not only Azerbaijan and Turkey, but also Russia. In 1977, Armenian terrorists led by Stepan Zatikyan committed a series of explosions in the Moscow metro.

Today the knowledgable sources report of a new wave of anti-Russian sentiments and resentment towards Russia in the Armenian society. Thus, Alain Simonyan, Vice-Speaker of the Armenian parliament, in his interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda stated that "the Armenian society has an understanding that it was Russia that surrendered Garabagh!" The anti-Russian rallies in Yerevan are governed by the National Democratic Pole, the former Sasna Tsrer.

There are no former terrorists.