Major-general who reported Aghband’s liberation to Azerbaijani president: ‘We fought with enemy for over 6 hours’

“We fought with the enemy for more than six hours in the Patriotic War and liberated the Aghband border post,” Major-General of Azerbaijan’s State Border Service (SBS) Misir Aliyev said in an interview with Report’s employee sent to the Zangilan district.

He noted that the main task given by the top leadership in the Second Karabakh War was to liberate the 132-kilometer section of the Azerbaijan-Iran state border from Armenians.

“Also, we received a task from the high command to clear the strategic heights of the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border from the enemy and restore the state border. During the operations, after our units liberated Zangilan city, the offensive began along the Araz River. During the movement in the direction of the Araz River, we were greeted with great joy by our compatriots living in Iran. It was a matter of pride for all our units. But their joy was dangerous for our lives. That’s because the Armenians could see our arrival. Taking into account that the enemy could notice our movement along Araz, we headed to the mountainous area from the direction of the Baharli border post. There are very difficult areas in terms of terrain. We moved 6-7 kilometers along the mountain from the Baharli border post. Then we were subjected to the fire of Grad multiple rocket launchers and mortar shells by the Armenians in the direction of Bartaz village. We strengthened our positions in that direction and eliminated the enemy attacks,” said the major-general.

Misir Aliyev emphasized that later they started moving in the direction of the Aghband border post to fulfill the task fully. At first, advance intelligence teams made observations at that outpost: “It became known that a large number of forces of Armenians were concentrated and moving towards us. We concentrated our units on the heights immediately in front. At that time, the enemy had two cameras on the heights. They were watching our movements with a camera. We neutralized a camera. But we did not have time to neutralize the other camera.”

He noted that the task was to enter the territory and destroy the enemy, clear the Aghband border post of Armenians and restore the 132-kilometer section of the Azerbaijan-Iran state border: “We fought with units of the Armenian armed forces for more than six hours. As a result, we eliminated the Armenians and completely cleared the Aghband border post of the enemy. I was lucky enough to report on this to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. With this, the 132-kilometer section of the Azerbaijan-Iran state border was taken under control by the State Border Service.”

According to the relevant decrees of President Ilham Aliyev, Misir Aliyev was awarded the 3rd-degree order "For Service to the Country", medals "For the Liberation of Jabrayil" and "For the Liberation of Zangilan."

According to the decree signed by President Ilham Aliyev on August 17 this year, Misir Aliyev received the high military rank of major general.