Azerbaijani Armed Forces

The Emblem of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces

The Azerbaijani Armed Forces (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Silahlı Qüvvələri) is the military of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The armed forces have three branches: the Azerbaijani Land Force, the Azerbaijani Air Force, and the Azerbaijani Navy. Related forces which are not part of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, include the paramilitary Azerbaijani National Guard, the Internal Troops of Azerbaijan, and the State Border Service of Azerbaijan (who patrol Azerbaijan’s borders with Georgia, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Armenia), which can be involved in state defense.

The Commander-in-Chief of the military is the President of Azerbaijan, currently Ilham Aliyev. The Ministry of Defense is in charge of political leadership. It is currently headed by Safar Abiyev. Military command is in the hands of the General Staff, headed by the Chief of Staff, who is Colonel-General Najmaddin Sadigov.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has been trying to further develop its armed forces into a professional, well trained, and mobile military. Based on 2007 statistics the country has about 66,940 troops, and a paramilitary force of 15,000 troops. There are 300,000 former service personnel who have had military service in the last fifteen years.^[1]

Azerbaijan had actually established the Azerbaijani Armed Forces and a Ministry of Defense on June 26, 1918 with the first independence of Azerbaijan, as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, after the collpase of the Russian Empire in 1918 until it was invaded and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1920 which came after the Russian Empire. The Azerbaijani Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense were established again in 1991 with the second and final independence of Azerbaijan, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Azerbaijani Armed Forces were formed out of the former Soviet forces in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.

Azerbaijani Armed Forces Media

Officers of the army of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918
Cadets of the Baku Higher All-Arms Command School during a parade in Baku in 1960
A Guard of Honor during a parade in Baku in 1966
Azerbaijan has a dozen 300mm salvo rocket systems 9A52 "Smerch" with a range of 70-90 km (55.92 mi).
Azerbaijani Army order of battle
S-300 PMU2 during a military parade in Baku 2011
Members of the Azerbaijani Special Forces during a military parade in Baku 2011
The Marauder is a South African MRAP manufactured under license in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani Special Forces unit in Turkish manufactured Otokar Cobra