Azerbaijan detained a group of militant Islamists preparing an armed attack near the US embassy in Baku, the former Soviet state's security ministry said today.
"Several people belonging to a Wahhabi group have been detained. They were planning terrorist attacks near the US embassy in Baku," National Security Ministry spokesman Arif Babayev told Reuters.
"Among them was an officer in the Azerbaijani army," the spokesman said.
Babayev said that part of the group was detained at the weekend in the village of Mashtagi, near Baku, including the military officer, who had recently gone absent from his post.
"It was established that the group ... had four Kalashnikov rifles, one Kalashnikov grenade launcher, 20 grenades, rounds and other automatic weapon parts," Babayev said.
Britain closed its diplomatic office in the ex-Soviet state's capital because of security concerns, and the US moved its embassy to limited operations, officials said.
Both embassies said they could not comment on the nature of the threat and would give no further details.
Azerbaijan is an oil-producing, mainly Muslim republic of eight million people on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, wedged between Iran, Turkey and Russia.
Authorities there have in the past years arrested dozens of people suspected of links to Islamist militants, but the country has no history of militant violence against Western targets.
Wahhabism originated in Saudi Arabia in the 18th century. It is rooted in the idea of restoring Islam's purity by purging it of foreign and corrupting influences