Azerbaijan arrests 3 men for planning attack on Israeli embassy at behest of ISIS

Authorities say men obtained weapons and planned to attack the mission in Baku on the basis of religious hostility

By Lazar Berman

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and Reuters 27 January 2026, 12:45 pm

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Illustrative: A trio of skyscrapers in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. October 11, 2019. (Nati Shohat/FLASH90)

Three individuals were arrested in Azerbaijan on Tuesday on suspicion of planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in the capital Baku at the instructions of Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State terror group, the Times of Israel learned.

Authorities in Azerbaijan confirmed the arrests, but did not specify which foreign embassy the would-be-attackers were planning to target.

In a statement, the State Security Service said the three men, whom it named, had conspired with members of ISIS-K, obtained weapons and planned to attack a foreign embassy before they were apprehended by security forces.

They planned to carry out the attack several months ago.

One of the men was born in 2000, and the two others in 2005.

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, which left at least 145 people dead.

Ambassadors and representatives of diplomatic missions accredited in Russia stand at attention as they attend a flower laying ceremony at the memorial in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue a week after the attack in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow on March 30, 2024. (SERGEI ILNITSKY / POOL / AFP)

There have been a number of Islamic State-linked plots foiled in the majority-Muslim regions of Russia, where the group is listed as a banned terrorist organization, and in Central Asia.

Azerbaijan, a South Caucasus country of some 10 million people bordering Russia and Iran, is a secular country with a predominantly Muslim population, the majority of whom are Shiites.

In its statement, Azerbaijani authorities said the suspects had been arrested on charges of “preparation for terrorism” on the basis of religious hostility. They said the investigation was ongoing.

In a separate case, an Azerbaijani court sentenced a man affiliated with ISIS-K to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges last October after finding him guilty of plotting an attack on a synagogue in Baku with a Molotov cocktail in December 2024.

Israeli missions abroad have been increasingly targeted in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault in Israel hat sparked the two-year war in Gaza.

In September 2025, Dutch authorities arrested an assailant who tried to break into the Israeli embassy in the Netherlands and set it ablaze. Months earlier, in May, eight Iranian men were reported to have been arrested in the United Kingdom over a plot to attack the Israeli embassy in London. And in November 2024, two Swedish teens, aged 17 and 19, were arrested on suspicion of throwing hand grenades at the Israeli embassy in Denmark.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.