Gunman kills safety chief at Azerbaijan Embassy in Iran

Azerbaijan’s Overseas Ministry stated it could evacuate its diplomatic mission, accusing Iran of not taking reported threats in opposition to it significantly prior to now. In the meantime, Iranian authorities changed Rahimi as police chief hours later after footage emerged that appeared to point out a police officer doing nothing to cease the assault.

Video purportedly from the scene of the assault confirmed an empty diplomatic police put up simply close to the embassy, with one man apparently wounded in an SUV parked exterior. Contained in the embassy previous a metallic detector, paramedics stood over what gave the impression to be a dull physique in a small workplace as blood pooled on the ground beneath.

An announcement from Azerbaijan’s Overseas Ministry stated that “an investigation is at present underway into this treacherous assault.” The ministry additionally described the attacker as destroying a guard put up with assault rifle hearth earlier than being stopped by the wounded guards, whom authorities described as being in a “passable” situation after being shot.

Nonetheless, the ministry stated a “latest anti-Azerbaijani marketing campaign in opposition to our nation in Iran has inspired such assaults in opposition to our diplomatic mission.”

“There have been makes an attempt to threaten our diplomatic mission in Iran earlier than, and measures to stop such conditions and to make sure the protection of our diplomatic missions have been continually raised earlier than Iran,” the ministry stated. “Sadly, the final bloody terrorist assault demonstrates the intense penalties of not displaying correct sensitivity to our pressing appeals on this route.”

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev known as the assault a “terrorist act.”

“A terrorist assault in opposition to diplomatic missions is unacceptable!” he stated in a press release.

Iranian state TV had quoted Rahimi as saying the gunman had entered the embassy together with his two kids in the course of the assault. Nonetheless, surveillance footage from contained in the embassy launched in Azerbaijan, which matched particulars of the opposite video of the aftermath and bore a timestamp matching the Azerbaijan Overseas Ministry’s assertion, confirmed the gunmen burst by way of the embassy’s doorways alone.

These inside tried to push by way of metallic detectors to take cowl. The person opens hearth with the rifle, its muzzle flashing, as he chases after the lads into the small facet workplace. One other man bursts from a facet door and fights the gunman for the rifle because the footage ends.

One other surveillance video from exterior the embassy which additionally corresponded to the identical particulars confirmed the gunman slam his automotive into one other in entrance of the embassy. The gunman then obtained out and leveled his rifle at a determine inside the Iranian police stand, probably a police guard, who stood nonetheless and did nothing as the person stormed the embassy.

Related Press journalists noticed the embassy’s entrance door pocked with bullet holes after the assault.

Iranian prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari reportedly stated that the gunman’s spouse had disappeared in April after a go to to the embassy. The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan information company quoted Shahriari as saying the gunman believed his spouse was nonetheless within the embassy on the time of the assault — although it was some eight months later.

Iran’s Overseas Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, additionally stated his nation strongly condemned the assault, which was underneath investigation with “excessive precedence and sensitivity.”

Azerbaijan borders Iran’s northwest. There have been tensions between the 2 international locations as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh area.

Iran in October launched a army train close to the Azerbaijan border, flexing its martial may amid the nationwide protests rocking the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan additionally maintains shut ties to Israel, which Tehran views as its high regional enemy. The Islamic Republic and Israel are locked in an ongoing shadow struggle as Iran’s nuclear program quickly enriches uranium nearer than ever to weapons-grade ranges.

Turkey, which has shut ties to Azerbaijan, condemned the assault, known as for the perpetrators to be delivered to justice and for measures to be put in place to stop comparable assaults sooner or later. Turkey has backed Azerbaijan in opposition to Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Turkey, which has been subjected to comparable assaults prior to now, deeply shares the ache of the Azerbaijani individuals,” a Turkish Overseas Ministry assertion stated. “Brotherly Azerbaijan just isn’t alone. Our assist to Azerbaijan will proceed with out interruption, because it at all times has.”

Related Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.