Fighting in the South Caucasus continues vigorously despite attempts to reach a ceasefire • Armenians declare a planned counterattack on all fronts
Azeri artillery shells in the Nagorno-Karabakh region // Photo: AP
The raging war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh region today set a new record in fighting when the Azeri army broke the lines south of the disputed region along the Iranian border and even managed to move north towards the capital of the province of Stepankrat.
The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has declared the reconquest of thirteen villages and towns on the southern front of fighting, including the abandoned town of Zangilen, where thousands of Azeri civilians lived before the Nagorno-Karabakh War in the 1990s.
The Azerbaijani army has released a video showing its special forces hoisting the Azerbaijani flag near one of the remaining government buildings in the town's territory.
The Armenians, for their part, announced a counterattack on all fronts.
According to some reports, the counterattack led to a partial withdrawal of the Azeri army from the Zangilen area, but no further verification was received.
A statement from Armenia's military spokesman said: "The withdrawal of our forces does not mean defeat. We withdrew in 1918, 1922 and 1992, and in the end we achieved victory.
But almost a month of incessant fighting caused great damage to the Armenian forces defending Nagorno among you.
The Defense Ministry of Armenian separatists in the region announced today that 772 of its men have been killed in fighting in the region since it broke out last month.
The Azerbaijani army, for its part, does not publish the numbers and names of its fallen.
Since the fighting began, nearly 300 civilians on both sides have been killed, mostly in reciprocal shelling of all major cities near the disputed lines.
As a result of the shelling, more than half of the Armenian inhabitants of the Nagorno-Karabakh region have fled it since the fighting began.