Azerbaijani Armed Forces Facts for Kids

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.

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.

U.S. Army War College Center for Strategic Leadership, Transformation of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, October 2008

Images for kids

Two Azerbaijani soldiers, members of the Guba military unit of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1919)
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).
S-300 PMU2 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.
Nasosnaya Air Base in Azerbaijan, Gen. Tom Hobbins, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander, and Chief Master Sgt. Gary Coleman, USAFE command chief, Lt. Col. Elmar Hüseynov
Azerbaijan deployed 150 peacekeepers during the Iraq War
The Cadets of the Corps of Drums of the Jamshid Nakhchivanski Military Lyceum.
Azerbaijani higher military cadets.

Azerbaijani Armed Forces facts for kids

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