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Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 3-16-CE

Remember: “The Nafir1 to Crimea has started and Turkey is the starting point.”

In a video: One masked militant said that the video was the militants' final address from Syria and Iraq and that their next video could be filmed "from the mountains of Tavildara in central Tajikistan, or the Tajik capital, Dushanbe -- or even from the Kremlin."

• IS cannot afford to risk losing its rank-and-file militants as it faces ongoing military pressure and sustained losses in both Syria and Iraq.

• Indeed, CIA chief Brennan noted that -- even though IS has been weakened in Syria and Iraq -- the group's reach is extending beyond Iraq and Syria and that it will take a combined and extended international effort over the next decade to repel the threat.

• "The threat of the presence of IS militants in the North Caucasus exists and it is serious. Under such circumstances, law enforcement officers need to put things in order so as to reduce the existing base of support for the militants,"

While the Islamist movement in the North Caucasus temporarily waned due to the fact that some militants switched their allegiances from the Caucasus Emirate to the Islamic State, insurgency-related incidents in Chechnya unexpectedly surged.

As early as 2010, Lieutenant General Movses Hakobian, the defence minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic stated: "I'm not waiting for [Azerbaijani] provocations, I'm waiting for war… Nagorno-Karabakh's defence ministry and defence army were set up to wage war, and we are getting ready for that every day, every hour." Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan responded to the latest border violence with: "We have prepared many surprises for the hotheads in Azerbaijan."

• A tangle of alliances raises further concerns that the escalating situation could expand beyond full-scale war into a wider regional conflict. Russia has taken Armenia under its wing, while Azerbaijan, with its abundant oil resources and strong cultural bonds with Turkey, has forged alliances with NATO and the West

• More troubling is both Armenia, and by proxy Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Azerbaijan have been amassing an unprecedented presence of weaponry, with Azerbaijan's annual military budget reaching $3bn by 2011, exceeding Armenia's entire gross domestic product.

• The region has been the playground of empires for centuries with the Persian, Russian, Ottoman, and European empires wrestling over its natural resources and geostrategic advantage - while various ethnic groups fought for local control.

Tajik IS Militants Threaten 'Jihad' At Home (Or Even In The Kremlin) March 23, A group of Tajik militants who claim to be fighting with the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria has posted a new video in which it threatens to transfer its activities from the Middle East and fight in Tajikistan, RFE/RL's Tajik Service, Radio Ozodi, has reported.

1 http://counterjihadreport.com/tag/nafir/ The Islamic Arabic term “Nafir” is a call to action that requires any member of a jihadi group to travel to the country Nafir is called against and participate in a holy war in the name of Allah. Nafir was declared in the early stages of the conflicts in Syria and Egypt, and it helped spark jihadi migrations into these nations. In this case, there’s no evidence yet of radical Muslim fighters flocking to Crimea to team up with the Muslim minority living there, but the #NafirforUkraine hashtag has been used more than 1,000 times, predominantly in tweets from Saudi Arabia.

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The 16-minute video was shared on the Russian-language Odnoklassniki social network on March 19 and shows a group of 16 masked militants, most of whom appear to be Tajiks. It is not possible to independently verify the date or the exact location in which the video was shot.Tajikistan's security authorities have yet to comment on the video, Radio Ozodi reported.One masked militant said that the video was the militants' final address from Syria and Iraq and that their next video could be filmed "from the mountains of Tavildara in central Tajikistan, or the Tajik capital, Dushanbe -- or even from the Kremlin."One of the men in the video appears to be a notorious Tajik militant, known as Nusrat Nazarov or Abu Kholodi Kulobi, who says he is 38 years old and hails from the village of Charmagon in the Kulob district of Tajikistan. Nazarov claims to be now living in a suburb of Raqqa, an IS stronghold in Syria. Nazarov addressed the Tajik government and pro-government religious leaders, saying that they would be "held accountable" for actions carried out against militants in the Central Asian state.In a recent interview with Radio Ozodi, Nazarov said that his goal is to introduce Shari'ah law throughout the world, including among Native Americans. Nazarov has also claimed that there are as many as 2,000 Tajiks fighting in IS, and that around 500 have been killed, figures that are almost certainly highly exaggerated. The State Committee for the National Security of Tajikistan said in November that as many as 300 Tajiks have gone to join the fighting in Syria and Iraq. Edward Lemon from the U.K.'s University of Exeter, who researches and tracks Tajik militants in Iraq and Syria, has found evidence of over 60 documented Tajiks in Syria.

Would IS Send Its Tajiks To Fight In Tajikistan? Nazarov's boasts that he and his fellow IS militants will soon be fighting to impose their version of Shari'ah law in Tajikistan is also likely hyperbole. There is no evidence that the IS leadership in Syria and Iraq is planning to send militants home to fight for the group.A video released by Tajik IS militants in January explained that several Tajiks had asked permission from IS's senior leadership to wage "jihad" in Tajikistan with the extremist group Jamaat Ansarullah, but had been refused.The militant in that video, who gave his nom de guerre as Abu Umariyon, said that IS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told the Tajik group that they would "have to wait."That the IS leadership is not keen to allow its militants to leave Syria and Iraq and fight elsewhere is not surprising. IS cannot afford to risk losing its rank-and-file militants as it faces ongoing military pressure and sustained losses in both Syria and Iraq. In Syria, the militants have taken heavy losses from the U.S.-led coalition and Kurdish militias, while forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are also targeting IS militants. IS in Iraq is facing air strikes from the United States and its allies, as well as ground assaults and opposition from the Kurdish peshmerga and Iran-backed Shi'ite militias. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan said on March 21 that IS had been weakened in Iraq and Syria.

IS Is Expanding Though IS is reluctant to allow its militants to leave for "jihad" elsewhere, as the group comes under increased military pressure in Syria and Iraq its leadership has welcomed the expansion of its influence into new parts of the world.The IS leadership has purportedly accepted the pledges of allegiance made to it by militant groups outside of Syria and Iraq. In November, IS leader Baghdadi issued an audio recording accepting pledges of allegiance from groups in "The Haramayn [Saudi Arabia], Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Algeria."This month, IS accepted a pledge of allegiance from the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram. In another sign of the increasing military pressure IS is facing, the group has released a number of videos calling on Western Muslims to carry out attacks on their home soil -- but only if they are unable to join IS in Syria and Iraq. Indeed, CIA chief Brennan noted that -- even though IS has been weakened in Syria and Iraq -- the group's reach is extending beyond

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Iraq and Syria and that it will take a combined and extended international effort over the next decade to repel the threat. -- Joanna Paraszczuk

Kremlin Envoy Warns IS 'Recruiting North Caucasus Students'T he Islamic State (IS) militant group is recruiting students at state universities in the North Caucasus, the Kremlin's presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District has claimed. Sergei Melnikov urged university rectors and authorities to "keep an eye on" young people studying at their institutions. "We have obtained information about the activities of recruiters for the Islamic State terrorist organization in our universities. Their representatives are recruiting students of North Caucasus state universities," Melnikov told a March 21 council meeting of the heads of the seven federal subjects that comprise the North Caucasus Federal District: Daghestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Stavropol Krai, and North Ossetia-Alania. Melnikov called on universities in the North Caucasus to take more notice of students' "extracurricular activities."

According to Melnikov, the level of education among illegal armed groups is rising because group members are increasingly students and graduates of regional universities. Melnikov did not specify which universities were affected, however, according to local news reports. While there has been a handful of reports about Russian nationals attending university or college before being radicalized, and one report of a Kazakh national allegedly associated with IS and who attempted to recruit students at a Russian university, there have been no reports of the systematic targeting by IS recruiters at further education institutions in the North Caucasus.Heightened Concerns Melnikov's call for increased vigilance by North Caucasian universities comes amid heightened concerns in Russia about the threat posed by IS, including in the volatile North Caucasus. In recent months, a number of militant factions mostly in Daghestan pledged allegiance to IS's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Though Baghdadi has appeared not to have noticed or mentioned the pledges, the move by militants formerly associated with the North Caucasus militant group the Caucasus Emirate has exacerbated growing fears in Russia.

Those fears were reflected in comments made earlier this month by the head of the Kremlin's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, who said that the authorities were "confirming information about the establishment of contacts between [the IS group] and the terrorist underground in the North Caucasus." The information would be used to inform "future decisions to strengthen Russian security," Patrushev added. Rights defenders and experts on the North Caucasus said that recent counterterrorism operations in Daghestan were a result of Patrushev's comments about the threat posed by IS to the region. Russian security authorities conducted counter-terrorism operations in five districts and three towns in Daghestan on March 15-16, according to Russian media reports.

The March 15 operations were carried out in the Buynaksky district and in Buynaksk town, and on March 16 spread to the Kizilyurtovsky, Khasavyurtovsky, Novolaksky, and Kazbekovsky districts and the towns of Kizilyurt and Khavasyurt. Aleksey Malashenko, the chair of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Religion, Society and Security Program, told the Caucasian Knot website that the Daghestan special operations were a consequence of Patrushev's warning of the threat posed by militants returning from the Middle East to the North Caucasus.

Rights defenders in the North Caucasus warned that the security forces must not alienate the local population during counterterrorism operations, but admitted that the operations were necessary because of the very real threat posed by IS in Daghestan. "The threat of the presence of IS militants in the North Caucasus exists and it is serious. Under such circumstances, law enforcement officers need to put things in order so as to reduce the

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existing base of support for the militants," Oleg Orlov of the rights group Memorial told the Caucasian Knot. According to Aleksandr Perendzhiev, of the Association of Military Political Analysts, the counterterrorism operations were intended to prevent the militants from becoming more active, a threat that increases as spring approaches and it becomes easier for the extremists to live in their forest hideouts. "The security services understand that they most not only stop the activation [of the pro-IS militants] but also deliver a powerful blow to [them]," Perendzhiev told the Caucasian Knot. The seasonal weather conditions in the North Caucasus may have been one of the motivating factors that led groups in Daghestan to pledge allegiance to IS. That the groups switched from the Caucasus Emirate to IS during the hard winter months could have been due to hopes that by doing so, they might receive some sort of material support. There is no evidence that any such material support has been forthcoming from IS, however. -- Joanna Paraszczuk

North Caucasus Group Hardens Line Against Rival IS Caucasus Islamists in Syria announced a split from Al-Qaeda-linked rebels long ago, and the rift has since widened.Posted At: 13 March 14:58

A leading social-media account affiliated with the Caucasus Emirate's affiliate in Syria has called on its supporters to warn their friends and family against the

militant group Islamic State (IS). "You must warn all the brothers and sisters, husbands and wives with whom you are acquainted against the Islamic State organization," the account wrote on March 13. In what is its first open call to speak out against IS, the Bely Sneg ("White Snow") account, which operates on social-media networks Facebook, VKontakte, and Twitter, said that to warn others against the group does not constitute "fitna" (sedition).

"Do not be afraid of words, as if fitna will come of this...this is not fitna! Warnings against those who are misguided is not fitna!" the Bely Sneg account wrote. As a warning, the account told the story of a wife who had "gone to Syria, to the 'caliphate' [the term used by the Islamic State group for the lands under its control] without notifying her husband, they caught her and imprisoned her. How can this be -- to live together for four years and not know the secrets of your wife or husband?" "So do not avoid this topic!" the Bely Sneg account exhorted its supporters.On March 11, the Bely Sneg account posted an explanation of its position on IS, saying that while JMA "certainly do not think that everyone in the IS organization are khawarij ["outsiders" who have deviated from the true path of Islam], we just as certainly believe that the IS organization itself is build on a khawarij tradition." The call by the Bely Sneg account for supporters to speak out against IS signifies a hardening of the position of North Caucasian militants fighting alongside the Caucasus Emirate's Syrian affiliate Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (JMA) regarding IS. The split between North Caucasians in JMA and IS is a phenomenon that has evolved over time and which at its heart is rooted in a power struggle between groups of Russian-speaking militants.The first cracks in the ranks of North Caucasian militants in Syria appeared as far back as the summer of 2013, when JMA's then-commander, an ethnic Kist from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge named Umar Shishani, began to grow closer to the Islamic State group, or ISIS as it was then known. In late November 2013, websites run by Chechen militants in Syria reported that Umar Shishani and a group of his men from JMA had pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Umar Shishani -- who had been appointed IS's military commander in

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Syria -- and his men left JMA for IS, and JMA appointed a new leader, Salakhuddin Shishani (Feyzullah Margoshvili), also a Pankisi Kist. Salakhuddin, however, was loyal to the Caucasus Emirate, and under its new leadership JMA began to refer to itself as the "Caucasus Emirate in Syria."As Umar Shishani's faction in IS battled for ideological supremacy over JMA by trying to win over the hearts and minds of JMA militants, the two groups also found themselves on opposite sides of bloody infighting between Syrian Islamist militant groups and IS in Syria. North Caucasian militants in JMA, however, vowed that they would stay out of the fighting between IS and Syrian groups, and would not promote "fitna" by openly slamming IS.In recent months, JMA has grown closer ideologically and practically to Syrian Islamist groups, particularly Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and the Ahrar al-Sham faction. JMA has and continues to fight alongside these groups in offensives against Syrian government forces in Aleppo, although it has stayed out of clashes with IS militants.Daghestani Pledges To IS The split between the two factions has widened into a yawning chasm in recent months, particularly following the decision by several Caucasus Emirate factions in Daghestan to pledge allegiance to IS leader Baghdadi.Some leading members of IS in Syria have openly praised the Daghestani militants' decision to transfer their loyalty from the Caucasus Emirate to IS. These include a former prominent member of the Caucasus Emirate, the Chechen Akhmed Chatayev, who was previously reputed to be close to the Caucasus Emirate's former leader, Doku Umarov.Although some analysts have suggested that the move could have been an attempt by IS to destabilize the North Caucasus from within, the switch to IS by the Daghestani groups does not seem to have been orchestrated by North Caucasians in Syria. Though IS has acknowledged oaths of allegiance by militant groups outside of Syria and Iraq, reports suggest that IS leader Baghdadi has refused permission to foreign militants to return home and wage "jihad" there.The pledges by the Daghestani groups to IS do not -- at least so far -- appear to have made much difference to how the groups are operating on the ground in the North Caucasus, though Chechen analyst Mairbek Vatchagayev raised the possibility of whether the Russian security services were behind the declarations. Russia, which has increasingly warned of the threat posed by IS to its domestic security, has taken several steps recently to crack down on radicalization and home-grown militancy. -- Joanna Paraszczuk

Increased Insurgent Activity Reported in Chechnya March 12, 2015 -- Volume 12, Issue 46 The head of the Russian presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, was forced recently to admit that the situation in some areas of the North Caucasus remains particularly bad in terms of the number crimes committed. “They pose a serious threat to the unity of our multi-ethnic society, have a negative impact on the state and on the foundations of the society,” he told a meeting of the Russian Investigative Committee. “According to statistics, the number of crimes has increased in the past year, and the situation in the North Caucasus remains tense” (Gazeta.ru, February 26). This admission is quite revealing against the backdrop of repeated government claims that insurgent activity in the North Caucasus has been reduced. While the Islamist movement in the North Caucasus temporarily waned due to the fact that some militants switched their allegiances from the Caucasus Emirate to the Islamic State, insurgency-related incidents in Chechnya unexpectedly surged. Following an incursion by a group of Chechen rebels into Grozny last December 4 (Kavkazsky Uzel, December 4, 2014), Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov reviewed his operational tactics against militants in the mountains and forests of Chechnya. For starters, Kadyrov decided to divide Chechnya into three sectors and put one police official in charge of each (Fedpress.ru, January 15). Moreover, Kadyrov thought his moves were not harsh enough

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and started targeting the relatives of the militants in the new ways: he ordered that close relatives of militants be expelled from Chechnya with no right to return and that their homes be demolished (Novaya Gazeta, December 5, 2014). Kadyrov was insulted by the militant attack on the day of a speech by his idol, President Vladimir Putin, and spoke against an amnesty for insurgents. Kadyrov said that “the remaining bandits are zombies and cannot be reeducated. We gave them a chance before, but they did not use it. They will have no more such chances” (Mir24.tv, December 26, 2014). At the same time, Kadyrov spoke in favor of pardoning those rebels who have been sentenced to prison terms. The Chechen ruler said that uncertainty and a difficult situation had made the young people choose the “wrong path.” In Kadyrov’s words, the government should understand this situation to save the people (Chechnyatoday.com, March 4). Kadyrov’s latest initiative came about as a result of the much-advertised surrender of the “amir of Chechnya’s lowlands,” Zelimkhan Magomadov on March 2. Chechen law enforcement agencies reported that Magomadov was surrounded in the town of Voikovo on the southern outskirts of Grozny. Magomadov was reportedly on the Russian federal wanted list (Kp.ru, March 2). However, in reality, there is no such position among the militants as the “amir of Chechnya’s lowlands.” The insurgents themselves said that Magomadov’s “surrender” was actually a failed attempt by the government to plant him in the ranks of the militants, who did not trust him and refused to accept him (Kavkazcenter.com, March 3). On the morning of February 9, Kadyrov’s native village of Tsentaroi (Khosi-Yurt), in Chechnya’s Kurchaloi district, was surrounded by scores of armed police. The reason for the alarm was that the previous night unknown individuals had painted graffiti that depicted the black flag associated with the Islamic State and an inscription in English: “Khosi-Yurt is support ISIS [sic]” (Kavkazcenter.com, February 9). This relatively innocent act prompted Kadyrov’s entire entourage to step down from their positions, as they explained, until they found out who did it. The perpetrators must have been found after nightfall, when Kadyrov thanked the members of his entourage for their work and accepted them back into government service (Instagram.com, February 10). It is interesting that some people decided to demonstrate their backing of the Islamic State in a village considered Kadyrov’s support base. A week later, there were reports of a massive fistfight involving Chechen conscripts in the Russian army. The incident took place in a military unit in Stavropol region and must have disappointed the authorities, since it coincided with the first military draft among Chechens in the past 14 years (Kavpolit.com, February 18). Media did not report on a bomb explosion that took place in Grozny on the night of February 24. According to local residents of the village of Chernorechye, the explosion occurred at a dam near the Chernorechye reservoir, killing three men. The residents said the blast took place after midnight and was fairly strong. Alarmed residents found the remnants of three individuals at the site of the explosion. Some expressed doubts about the official narrative, which said all three men were rebels and were blown up trying to plant a bomb. In the opinion of the villagers, the people were killed first and then their bodies were blown up (Kavkazsky Uzel, March 1). In any case, the explosion is unlikely to end up in the police reports as a failed terrorist attack. On the evening of February 28, five servicemen from the Russian Ministry of Interior special forces were wounded in a bomb attack in Chechnya’s Urus-Martan district. The incident took place at about 6 p.m. in a mountainous forested area near the village of Shalazhi (Interfax, March 1). Interestingly, the Russian Interior Ministry forces appeared to be engaged in an

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operation with no Chechen officers accompanying them. So, various agencies, such as the Russian interior ministry, the Chechen interior ministry, the Federal Security Service (FSB ) and the defense ministry’s special forces all appear to engage in operations autonomously. Chechen media ignored these losses, since they took place among the federal forces, which indicates how strained relations between different agencies are (see EDM, March 9). If the authorities in Chechnya do not change their harsh policies of reprisals against the people who have even only a slightest connection to the militants, the militants will increase their influence among the local population. In addition, against the backdrop of the arrests in Chechnya pertaining to the murder of the Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, on March 7, the situation in the republic is becoming uncertain and tense.

--Mairbek Vatchagaev 2,000 troops: S. Russia braces for large-scale military drills RT Published time: March 05, 2015 21:06 The Russian Defense Ministry has launched massive military exercises, involving over 2,000 troops and some 500 items of weaponry in southern Russia, including in the Caucasus. The field-type exercises of the air defense forces will be taking place until April 10 in twelve military firing ranges, located in Russia's South, the North Caucasus and Crimean Federal Districts, as well as at Russian military bases in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Armenia. “Over 2,000 troops have been involved into the battle drills, and over 500 items of weaponry and military hardware are being used,” Interfax quoted a statement of the Southern Military District. The training day will last for 10 hours, and half of the drills will take place at night. During the month-long drills, Russian troops will be practicing tactical, special and technical skills, alongside driving modern military equipment, shooting and fire control. The drills involve self-propelled howitzers “Gvozdika”, multiple artillery rocket systems “Grad”, mortars “Podnos”, anti-tank missile systems “Konkurs”, and modern intelligence drones “Navodchik-2”. “At the end of the field drills, tactical maneuvers are planned,” the statement said. “Combat units will repeal strikes from the aggressor’s tactical aircraft, drones and precision weapon projectiles.” “They will also carry out operational reconnaissance of the air situation in conditions of the electromagnetic warfare”, it added. On Wednesday, a NATO flotilla of six ships arrived in the Black Sea to take part in the exercises with the Bulgarian, Romanian and Turkish ships, the alliance said in a statement, stressing that the training will take course “in full compliance with international conventions”. Russia carries out military exercises on a regular basis. The country’s south saw 1,700-strong drills of radiation resistance troops in February, and the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy is set to exercise in the sea of Japan.

Tensions reignite in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict An escalation in attacks on civilians in the South Caucasus region is stoking fears of a return to all-out war. Anna Nigmatulina | 09 Mar 2015 . The embers of the quarter-century-old war over Nagorno-Karabakh - a landlocked mountainous region in the South Caucasus that lies at a crossroads between East and West - are smouldering again, and raising concerns another full-scale war is not far away. The region has been the playground of empires for centuries with the Persian, Russian, Ottoman, and European empires wrestling over its natural resources and geostrategic advantage - while various ethnic groups fought for local control. The most recent conflict erupted in 1988 after 65 years of imposed peace under Soviet rule, when Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of what was then the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) declared their desire to separate and join neighbouring Armenian SSR. What was initially a peaceful movement soon degenerated into violence and ethnic cleansing by both sides, and ultimately a

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full-scale war between the newly independent Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the 1990s. It was one of the most brutal conflicts to result from the imploding Soviet Union with an estimated 30,000 people killed, mostly civilians, and hundreds of thousands displaced before a ceasefire took hold. "You are asking very painful questions," said Ashot Harutiunyan, a war veteran and director of the history museum in the town of Shushi in Nagorno-Karabakh, when asked about the region's bloody past.

Life before the war, he said, was different "because that was during the Soviet government. It was a government where people couldn't discuss questions of national identity… And of course we lived in this system, had neighbours, visited each other - there were good Azeris."

'Grenades at home' Aynur Jafar was an internally displaced person who fled her home in the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam with her family when the situation became too dangerous. "It was a very peaceful place and even Armenians were coming and visiting," she recalled. "I mean, we were neighbours, we were living peacefully … we didn't think a war could happen."

But it did. "We kept hand grenades at home. Everybody had this … in case they suddenly attacked," Jafar, who was seven-years old when the war started, told Al Jazeera.The stories of torture from neighbouring villages were so terrifying that all in the community feared being taken hostage. "We'd decided to come together and just use that grenade to [commit] suicide," Jafar said.Traumatised civilians, who initially resolved never to abandon their homes, felt lucky to have escaped the war zone in the end. "People didn't even have time to pack some things. They just ran … arriving in Yerevan [Armenia's capital] with just the clothes on their backs," Silva Prodan, who served as a doctor in the war, said of the Armenian refugees who fled Nagorno-Karabakh upon being caught in the crossfire. By the time a ceasefire was negotiated in 1994 with the help of regional powers, Armenian forces took control over Nagorno-Karabakh, along with some buffer corridors of Azeri territory, and Nagorno-Karabakh declared itself an independent republic, albeit unrecognised by much of the world, with its own government and military. The ceasefire has far from resolved the conflict, however, and failed to lead to a peace agreement. To the contrary, said Harutiunyan. "Basically since 1994 … there has been an ongoing unofficial war". Azerbaijan vows to re-establish the integrity of its "occupied" territories sooner or later, while Armenian authorities boast they will retain the "liberated" Armenian lands.

Ceasefire In the 25 years since the ceasefire, tit-for-tat gunfire has resulted in periodic deaths of border guards on both sides. But there has been a significant escalation in these incidents recently involving the use of heavier weapons and attacks on civilians, "which was not visible as often before", said Arsen Kharatyan, a Tbilisi-based freelance journalist. In 2014, 60 people died in cross-border violence, with one of the more serious incidents involving the downing of an Armenian helicopter by Azeri forces in early November. More troubling is both Armenia, and by proxy Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Azerbaijan have been amassing an unprecedented presence of weaponry, with Azerbaijan's annual military budget reaching $3bn by 2011, exceeding Armenia's entire gross domestic product. Furthermore, recent statements from officials from all sides contain increasingly belligerent rhetoric. Bayram Safarov, chairman of the Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno-Karabakh in Exile, declared on February 3 that the Azerbaijani army is capable of "running the Armenians not only out of the occupied territories of the Azerbaijan Republic, but from Armenia itself".

In his New Year's greetings to the armed forces, Azerbaijani Defence Minister Zakhir Gasanov announced: "We will not allow the enemy to live peacefully on our historic lands.

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We will restore our territorial integrity." On the other side, Armenian authorities have indicated they are preparing for all-out war. As early as 2010, Lieutenant General Movses Hakobian, the defence minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic stated: "I'm not waiting for [Azerbaijani] provocations, I'm waiting for war… Nagorno-Karabakh's defence ministry and defence army were set up to wage war, and we are getting ready for that every day, every hour." Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan responded to the latest border violence with: "We have prepared many surprises for the hotheads in Azerbaijan."A tangle of alliances raises further concerns that the escalating situation could expand beyond full-scale war into a wider regional conflict. Russia has taken Armenia under its wing, while Azerbaijan, with its abundant oil resources and strong cultural bonds with Turkey, has forged alliances with NATO and the West. On February 7, senior officials of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Minsk Group, comprised of the United States, Russia and France - tasked with finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict - met to discuss the worrying developments and issued a statement condemning the deadly and escalating aggression from both sides. Officials encouraged the involved parties to stop the violence and take "steps to reduce tensions and strengthen the ceasefire and … find the political will to begin this process immediately without excuses". From February 16-19, representatives from these organisations travelled to the region for personal meetings with officials of the conflict countries to further discuss "the dangerous rise in violence".

No need to worry Despite the heightened state of alert, however, analysts agree there is no reason for worry about an escalation and, on the contrary, the current situation of perceived danger actually benefits some of the countries involved.

"A full-blown war is in nobody's interest," said Luke Coffey, a political analyst. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan want to pursue economic development and recover from the devastating effects of the war, he said. Coffey, who just returned from a visit to Azerbaijan, said although Azeri officials vow to retake "stolen" territories, Azerbaijan, in particular, has much to lose. "Azerbaijan likes making money from oil and gas, but oil and gas is going to be there for a certain time, but Nagorno-Karabakh is going to be there forever. So I'd say in the short term, their interest is getting money from oil and gas to improve infrastructure, to improve the lives of the IDPs living in Azerbaijan, and to modernise and rearm their military," Coffey told Al Jazeera. Likewise, Armenia, is working to recover both economically and politically from the war, and on reducing its dependence on Russia and diaspora remittances, and cannot afford another full-out war. "In order to reach peace with a neighbour, we must first make order inside our own country," said Harutiunyan, the museum director. "We must create a strong economy, jobs, a country of social justice," because economic development is key to any successful peace process, he continued.

Another war would be "disastrous for all parties", agreed Kharatyan. "Political rhetoric is one thing, and it is strongly directed to internal audiences, all politics is local."Creating distractions at the border takes attention away from internal political troubles for the leaders of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, he argued. "This is especially true in the case of Azerbaijan," said Arzu Geybullayeva, a political analyst and human rights activist based in Istanbul. "To divert international attention from these issues, the Azerbaijani government is skilfully using the conflict and escalation." Regional powers also have a stake in the status quo of instability in the region. "I think part of it is that Russia is antagonising Armenia to take more of an aggressive stance, and that is triggering a response from Azerbaijan, so both sides are willing to use force along the line of control… But I think Russia benefits from this," said Coffey. It is interesting that despite being members of the Minsk Group, Russia and the

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US are among the main suppliers of military equipment to both countries. The Minsk group, explained Coffey, "right now is dead, just because of the political realities… It can issue statements, but that's the extent of its abilities."

The spotlight brought on by the instability in the Caucasus, "distracts the West [in light of the Ukrainian war], and makes Putin look like a statesman [trying to broker a peace deal], and helps Russian oil and gas companies" by pushing business away from unstable Azerbaijan, he added. Turkey, on the other side, explained Coffey, "needs the investors to look to the South Caucasus. They need oil and gas transiting through the region into Turkey, because Turkey has this aspiration to be a regional oil and gas hub". Yet, despite this economic incentive, Turkey remains steadfast in its support for its ally. The Turkish-Armenian border remains closed to this day. Despite all the noise, the casualties, and the rhetoric of war - the status quo will likely linger. "Which is terrible," said Coffey. "I think that's the reality, especially in the South Caucasus, [where] these frozen conflicts find a natural home." Source: Al Jazeera

Cees Page 10 of 10 3/24/2015