YEREVAN: Four Armenian servicemen were killed and three Azerbaijani soldiers wounded on Friday, the two countries said, as they accused each other of engaging in a new round of clashes.
Tensions between Baku and Yerevan have escalated sharply in recent months, as both sides accuse the other of cross-border attacks.
“As a result of an Azerbaijani provocation, four servicemen were killed and one wounded on the Armenian side,” Armenia’s defense ministry said, after earlier reporting two were killed.
The ministry said earlier that Azerbaijan had fired at Armenian positions near the town of Sotk, less than ten kilometers (six miles) from the Azeri border.
Azerbaijan said two of its soldiers were injured by an Armenian drone strike in the region of Kalbajar, on the other side of the border, while another was injured in cross-border fire.
“We declare that all responsibility for the tension and its consequences lies with the military-political leadership of Armenia,” Baku’s defense ministry said.
Both sides regularly blame each other for starting the violence and both sides accuse the other of spreading disinformation.
The latest clashes mark another blow to achieving peace between the two ex-Soviet republics, which have for decades been locked in a bitter dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Yerevan and Baku have fought two wars for control over the region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but largely populated by ethnic Armenians.
Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of blocking food and aid supplies to Armenian-populated towns in Nagorno-Karabakh via the Lachin corridor, the sole road linking Armenia to the region.
Yerevan and international aid groups have warned the humanitarian situation in the mountainous region is dire and deteriorating, with shortages of food and medicine.
The two sides have been unable to reach a lasting peace settlement despite mediation efforts by the European Union, United States and Russia.
Four Armenian troops killed in clash with Azerbaijan
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Four Armenian troops killed in clash with Azerbaijan
- Tensions between Baku and Yerevan have escalated sharply in recent months, as both sides accuse the other of cross-border attacks
- “As a result of an Azerbaijani provocation, four servicemen were killed and one wounded on the Armenian side,” Armenia’s defense ministry said
Bomb attacks on Thailand petrol stations injure 4: army
- Authorities did not announce any arrests or say who may be behind the attacks
BANGKOK: Assailants detonated bombs at nearly a dozen petrol stations in Thailand’s south early Sunday, injuring four people, the army said, the latest attacks in the insurgency-hit region.
A low-level conflict since 2004 has killed thousands of people as rebels in the Muslim-majority region bordering Malaysia battle for greater autonomy.
Several bombs exploded within a 40-minute period after midnight on Sunday, igniting 11 petrol stations across Thailand’s southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, an army statement said.
Authorities did not announce any arrests or say who may be behind the attacks.
“It happened almost at the same time. A group of an unknown number of men came and detonated bombs which damaged fuel pumps,” Narathiwat Governor Boonchauy Homyamyen told local media, adding that one police officer was injured in the province.
A firefighter and two petrol station employees were injured in Pattani province, the army said.
All four were admitted to hospitals, none with serious injuries, a Thai army spokesman told AFP.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters that security agencies believed the attacks were a “signal” timed with elections for local administrators taking place on Sunday, and “not aimed at insurgency.”
The army’s commander in the south, Narathip Phoynok, told reporters he ordered security measures raised to the “maximum level in all areas” including at road checkpoints and borders.
The nation’s deep south is culturally distinct from the rest of Buddhist-majority Thailand, which took control of the region more than a century ago.
The area is heavily policed by Thai security forces — the usual targets of insurgent attacks.
