Two Azerbaijani officers, five soldiers killed in new Armenia clashes
Deputy Defence Minister Karim Valiyev told officers and soldiers had "heroically died in action"
BAKU (AFP) - An Azerbaijani general, a colonel, and five more soldiers were killed Tuesday in fresh border clashes with arch-foe Armenia, local media quoted officials as saying.
Deputy Defence Minister Karim Valiyev told media, including news agency APA and news website report.az, that Major General Polad Gashimov, Colonel Ilgar Mirzoyev, and five soldiers had "heroically died in action" on Tuesday morning.
That brings the total number of Azerbaijani dead to 11 since border clashes on Sunday reignited the simmering Azerbaijan-Armenia territorial conflict.
Valiyev claimed Azerbaijani forces had killed 100 Armenian troops, but Yerevan has so far denied any troop losses.
The two ex-Soviet republics have been in a protracted conflict for decades over Azerbaijan’s southwestern separatist region of Nagorny Karabakh, which was seized by ethnic Armenian separatists in a 1990s war that claimed 30,000 lives.
