Haaretz: 92 flights from Israeli base reveal arms exports to Baku

PanARMENIAN.Net - An Azerbaijani cargo plane landed last week at the Ovda Israeli air force base north of Eilat. After two hours on the ground, as usual, the old Ilyushin-76 airlifter took off, flew over central Israel, continued north over Turkey and then to the east – returning to its home field in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

An investigation by Haaretz, based on publicly available aviation data, reveals that over the past seven years, at least 92 cargo flights flown by Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines have landed at the Ovda airbase, the only airfield in Israel through which explosives may be flown into and out of the country.

Israel has had a strategic alliance with Azerbaijan for the past two decades, and Israel sells the country weapons worth billions of dollars – and in return, Azerbaijan, per sources, supplies Israel with oil and access to Iran.

According to foreign media reports, Azerbaijan has allowed the Mossad to set up a forward branch to monitor what is happening in Iran, Azerbaijan’s neighbor to the south, and has even prepared an airfield intended to aid Israel in case it decides to attack Iranian nuclear sites. Reports from two years ago stated that the Mossad agents who stole the Iranian nuclear archive smuggled it to Israel via Azerbaijan. According to official reports from Azerbaijan, over the years Israel has sold it the most advanced weapons systems, including ballistic missiles, air defense and electronic warfare systems, kamikaze drones and more.

Israeli aviation law forbids the routine transport of explosives from Ben-Gurion Airport, because it is located in the heart of a densely populated area, said sources in the aviation industry. The only airport from which it is permitted to import and export explosives is the Israel Air Force base in Ovda, the sources said.