A bomb damaged store in the street of central Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh following missile attacks by Azerbaijani forces
Credit: Julian Simmonds
Israel has handed Azerbaijan the upper hand in its war with Armenia over the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh by selling it drone weapons Armenian forces have little defence against.
In the recent flare-up of fighting, Azerbaijan has used Israeli-made ‘kamikaze drones’ that can take out Armenian tank and artillery positions dug into Nagorno-Karabakh’s mountainous terrain.
Because they held strategic high ground, the tanks and artillery had previously made the enclave’s defences almost impossible for Azerbaijani forces to recapture.
This might bring an end to nearly 30 years of rough stalemate in the conflict, which began in 1988 when Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fought to secede from Azerbaijan.
The drones – also known as ‘loitering drones’ – can circle a target for hours and then dive down to self-destruct with a payload of explosives.
While Israel maintains diplomatic relations with both Muslim-majority Azerbaijan (although it a secular state) and Christian Armenia, their sale has now become a contentious issue.
Last week, Armenia withdrew its ambassador to Israel in protest at “Israel’s supply of ultra-modern weapons to Azerbaijan”.
The move was seen by diplomats as a tacit admission that Armenian forces are suffering heavy losses in the conflict, which has already claimed at least 260 lives.
Commanders in Nagorno Karabakh have confirmed at least 160 military deaths, while Azerbaijan has not given out casualty figures.
Armenia_Azerbaijan conflict
Dr Neil Melvin, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said: "The drones have opened up a weakness in the Armenian military position by diminishing their ability to use high ground to dominate the battlespace. If the Armenians feel their military dominance is not as effective as it was, that may mean they are more willing to negotiate."
At least two Israeli drones are understood to have been used by Azerbaijan in the conflict. One is the Harop, a drone shaped like a hammerhead shark that can carry a 25 kilo warhead.
Made by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, it is believed to have been used to attack a busload of Armenian volunteer soldiers during a previous flare-up of the conflict in 2016.
It also briefly featured in a propaganda broadcast by the Azerbaijan army in 2017, in which female singer Narmin Karimbayova, the winner of an Azerbaijani talent show, sang to a montage of military forces in action.
The other drone is the Orbiter 1K, made by Israeli defence contractor Aeronautics, which carries a 3kg warhead.
According to a tweet by Rob Lee, a PhD student at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, footage released by the Azerbaijani government from the latest conflict shows two Orbiter drones apparently in action against an Armenian Howitzer position in Nagorno-Karabakh.
With both sides giving conflicting claims of their success in the fighting so far, it is hard to be certain just how decisive the Israeli drones have been.
Turkey has also been supplying Azerbaijan with its Bayraktar TB2 drones, a version of the US Predator drone, which Ankara has also used in its military intervention in Libya.
However, in an interview with the US based Axios news website, Hikmet Hajiyev, an aide to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, said the Harop drones had "proved themselves very effective" in the recent fighting.
He added: "If Armenia is scared of the drones that Azerbaijan is using it should stop its occupation."
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Credit: Burhan Ozbilici/AP
Diplomats have also questioned the wisdom of the sale given Israel’s frosty relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
His enthusiastic backing of Azerbaijan in the recent fighting is widely seen as part of a plan to expand Turkey’s influence in the Caucasus.
Israel’s willingness to sell weapons to Azerbaijan reflects both complex geopolitical calculations and its desire to maintain markets for its domestic weapons industry, which it sees as key to its own security.
Although Azerbaijan is allied with Turkey, Israel sees President Aliyev as a potential friend in the event of any hostilities with Iran.
Azerbaijan also has a tense relationship with Tehran because of claims that ethnic Azerbaijanis, who make up roughly a fifth of Iran’s population, are politically marginalised.
Gallia Lindenstrauss, an analyst at the Tel Aviv Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "Israel sees a need to have a defence industry because of the threats it faces, and when you have such a sophisticated defence industry you also need clients."
An Armenian diplomat added: "We don’t know what Israel’s geopolitical reasons were for selling Azerbaijan these weapons, but clearly moral calculations did not feature."
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