Azerbaijani and Armenian forces have exchanged heavy rocket and artillery fire, with each side accusing the other of targeting civilian areas as the fighting over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh intensified.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said on Sunday one civilian was killed and four wounded in an Armenian rocket attack on its second city of Ganja, and Baku threatened to retaliate by destroying military targets inside Armenia.
Armenia denied it had directed fire “of any kind” towards Azerbaijan. The leader of Nagorno-Karabakh said his forces had targeted a military airbase in Ganja but later stopped firing in order to avoid civilian casualties.
In statements posted on its website earlier, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said Ganja and several other civilian areas were being attacked using rockets and shelling.
“Azerbaijan will destroy military targets directly inside Armenia from which shelling of its population centres is taking place,” presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said, adding that there were civilian casualties in Beylagan, which borders Nagorno-Karabakh.
Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Ganja, said: “People here are telling us that approximately an hour after a rocket landed, a second hit another residential area a few blocks away, wounding two people.”
SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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