BAKU: Azerbaijan said it had prevented several acts of “terrorist” sabotage planned by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including a plot to attack a major oil pipeline running through the South Caucasus to Turkiye.
The targets included the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan, an Ashkenazi synagogue, and a leader of an ancient Jewish community in Azerbaijan called the Mountain Jews, according to a State Security Service statement cited by the Azertag state news agency.
The BTC pipeline travels via Georgia and Turkiye and sends oil to Europe, and also accounts for roughly a third of Israeli oil imports. Any damage to its infrastructure could drive global energy prices even higher as the war in the Middle East enters its second week.
The Azerbaijani statement came just a day after Baku vowed to retaliate for what it said was an incursion of four Iranian drones into its Nakhchivan exclave, which injured four people and damaged airport infrastructure. Iran flatly denied it sent the drones into Azerbaijan.
