A youth in Azerbaijan affiliated with the Islamic State terror organization is being tried for attempting to attack a synagogue in the capital city of Baku in December, according to Azerbaijani media reports.
18-year-old Abdulla Aliyev is accused of attempting to attack the Mountain Jews Synagogue of Baku with a Molotov cocktail and other weapons on December 28. The State Security Service was able to prevent the attack and detain him.
An accomplice testified against Aliyev, saying he was recruited online. The two began speaking about ISIS on Instagram that November, and Aliyev sent him a link to join a secret group.
“Later, he told me that he was going to attack a synagogue and asked me for an axe, a knife, a Molotov cocktail, and gloves,” the witness said. “He said that after that, when the time came, he would bomb other places as well.”
The two were driving together to attack the synagogue when authorities stopped and inspected the car, finding incendiary substances and weapons.
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Aliyev was found to be affiliated with the ISIS Khorasan terrorist organization, media reports said. He was charged at the Baku Court of Grave Crimes on multiple accounts of terrorism, religious extremism, and organized crime. The trial will next meet on September 22.
Azerbaijan is considered one of the safest Muslim countries for Jews, thanks in large part to a secular government that actively promotes religious tolerance and interfaith harmony.
The country’s Jewish community is said to date back over 2,000 years to the Babylonian exile.
Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan celebrating an engagement, circa 1910. (Krasnaya Sloboda archives)
Today, between 6,000 and 30,000 Jews live in the country, according to various estimates, with the majority living in Baku.
Three of Azerbaijan’s eight synagogues are in Baku, including the Mountain Jews Synagogue, which was built in 1945.
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