The Battle of Kelbajar was the capture of the western region of Kelbajar, Azerbaijan during the 1993 spring-summer campaign by Armenian military forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Kelbajar was outside the boundaries of the contested enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh that Armenian and Azeri forces had been fighting over for five years. Bordering Armenia proper, the predominantly Armenian populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh had announced their declaration of independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 and fighting had taken place mostly in the enclave itself. Seeking to keep the territory under its rule, the Armenians of Karabakh were aided by Armenia itself in the form of logistics, supplies, volunteers and military weaponry. Kelbajar, only several kilometers from Armenia's border, was comprised of several dozen villages including its eponymous provincial capital.

Kelbajar is a raion that is surrounded by several canyons and an elevated mountain range known as the Mrav Mountains. In the attack, Armenian forces from four different directions, including Armenia proper, assaulted and captured a space of over 1,900 kilometers. This linked it with region of Nagorno-Karabakh and opened a second "corridor" for Armenia to send aid through. Most of Kelbajar's civilian population had been transported out of the town prior to the battle. Kelbajar is currently under the control of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

Background

By the spring of 1992, the Azeri military had been pushed out of Nagorno-Karabakh. Once an autonomous oblast during the Soviet era under the jurisdiction of the Azerbaijan Soviet republic, Karabakh was made up of approximately 75% of Armenians. As the Soviet Union's disintegration neared during the late 1980s, the enclave's government expressed its desire to secede and unite with the neighboring Armenian Soviet republic. By 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan were independent countries but the nascent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic remained unrecognized despite its government's formal declaration. Small-scale violence had flared up between the two ethnic groups in February 1988 but escalated to the use of Soviet-built tanks, helicopters, fighter bombers appropriated by all sides after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

On May 9, 1992, Armenian forces captured the mountain stronghold of Shusha and remained on the defensive until the following year. Fighting between Armenians and Azeris continued in other parts of the enclave including Lachin, Martuni, and Martakert. However, nearly all offensives launched by the Azeri military failed or were unable to hold on to the territory. By the spring of 1993, the Azeri military which had the upper hand in the initial stages of the war, had been largely reduced to unorganized and incoherent fighting groups. By March 1993, fighting had shifted to west and to the south of Karabakh.

The region of Kelbajar

Rationale for its taking

Kelbajar is located between Armenia and the western border of Nagorno-Karabakh. Situated between a steep mountain range, its wartime population of approximately 45,000–60,000 was primarily made up of ethnic Azeris and Kurds. Throughout the war, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh had been voicing their discontent over seventy years of Azeri rule and said that they were defending themselves from Azerbaijan's aggression. Their capture of the towns of Khojaly and Shusha stemmed from security concerns in silencing artillery bombardments positioned in those towns. They stated that Karabakh had historically been an Armenian region and that their claims for territory did not extend beyond its boundaries.

In March 1993, military incursions by Azeri forces and artillery barrages were reported to have been coming from the region, prompting military leaders to announce an offensive against the rayon. However, a different reason was given by the Armenians' most successful commander of the conflict, Monte Melkonian. According to Melkonian, the commander of the southern front in Martuni, the decision to take the town was a matter of certainty rather than choice. He stated, "This is a historical issue… of course this is historical Armenia… And we'll vindicate that reality [to the Azeris] with our guns. Unfortunately! It would be nice if the Azeris would understand that reality is reality, agree and say OK, it's yours, and that's that. Questioned on the possibility of a large expulsion of civilians if the region was captured, Melkonian responded, "A lot of blood has been spilled on both sides… The emotions are high and that isn't conducive to living together in near or medium future.

The battle

Heavy resistance

Defeats in late March already had the Azeri military evacuating civilians out of the region to the northern town of Yevlakh and Azerbaijan's second largest city, Ganja. The Armenians had assembled a force of several hundred men to enter Kelbajar from four different directions: Melkonian's own detachment of tanks and troops from Karabakh would attack from the southeast, one fifty-man unit from the town of Vardenis, Armenia would enter from the west; the third force would attack from the town of Aghdaban in the north, and the primary contingent would come from the southern village of Nareshtar.

The battered village of Charekdar in Kelbajar had already seen extensive fighting in earlier weeks and was reinforced by both Azeri and foreign fighters as the Armenian offensive commenced on March 27. However, instead of launching a simultaneous attack, only the units in Aghdaban and Nareshtar moved out. Melkonian's armored column did not move out until later on and his units faced tenacious resistance on an embankment of entrenched defenses where his forces were forced to retreat. The troops in Vardenis began their assault shortly thereafter but their advance was slowed since they had to move trek through the snowy passes of the Mrav Mountains.

On March 28, Melkonian's forces counterattacked Charekdar and an eight-hour battle ensued until his forces were able to break through the defenses. The disparity of Azeri defenses scattered through the region allowed them to advance twenty-nine kilometers, reaching the Tatar River on March 31. Within another twenty kilometers of his forces' positions was the Kelbajar's namesake capital and a crucial road intersection that led to Lachin and the village of Zulufgarli.

Melkonian's advance

The following two days saw a massive refugee column of cars and trucks "laden with bundles… bumper to bumper" trudging through the intersection. Melkonian ordered his forces to halt their advance until the remnants of the column dried up in the early afternoon of April 1. Assessing that most refugees had left, he ordered his units to advance and sent a detachment to guard a vital tunnel leading south towards Zulufgarli. While his troops had assumed that most civilians had left Kelbajar, they encountered a GAZ-52 transport truck in the tunnel and, thinking it was a military vehicle, fired and destroyed it with rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles. As they observed the wreck of the vehicle, the troops realized they had taken out a vehicle filled entirely with civilians: twenty-five Kurd and Azeri kolkhoz workers. Four of them, including the driver of the truck and his daughter, were killed. The rest were ordered by Melkonian to a hospital in Karabakh's capital of Stepanakert; however, as many as eleven of them died.

After the Zulufgarli incident, his forces pushed forward and reached another vital intersection leading to Ganja, fifteen kilometers away from the capital. Civilians in Kelbajar continued to be evacuated by both air and the through the intersection and Melkonian halted his advance by a further forty hours to allow the traffic column to move through. On April 1, his forces issued a radio message to the governor of the region, instructing his forces to leave the capital. An ultimatum was placed until 2 P.M. of the following day. Identified by his radio codename, "Khan", the governor responded back and stated, "We're never going to leave… we'll fight to the end.

Final push

As the deadline passed on April 2, Melkonian's armor entered the intersection and encountered a line of Azeri tanks and infantry. A firefight ensued but lasted for only several minutes as the defense line was soon battered and destroyed. Many of the Azeri forces were ill-prepared for the attack as Melkonian noted when pointing out to their lack of equipment, "There are no boots on their feet. Despite having his force reduced down to a total of sixty-eight men, a force too weak to take the capital, he ordered them to continue forward.

By April 3, the Armenian forces had encircled the capital and resistance had weakened. Azeri commander Suret Husseinov and his 709^th brigade which had been tasked to defending the Mrav Mountains, had retreated to Ganja after political and military problems began to unravel upon in the battlefield. An account of the war-weariness afflicting the habitants of the town was described by Melkonian's elder brother, Markar:

Although his contingent did not reach in time for the fighting, the city's capital was taken. Aside from some farm life, the town had been largely abandoned. The taking of the region marked a continuous swath of territory held by Armenians stretching from Karabakh to Armenia proper, a total of 3,000 square kilometers. In the retreat through the Omar Pass of the Mrav mountains, many Azeri refugees froze to death. With the last helicopters leaving on April 1, they were forced to walk through the heavy snow at freezing temperatures. Approximately 20–30,000 civilians were processed into the camps at Yevlakh. Although casualty counts were not properly ascertained, civilian deaths nevertheless, exceeded them.

Political ramifications

The offensive provoked international criticism against both the Armenians in Karabakh and the Republic. Vafa Gulizade, the chief advisor to then president of Azerbaijan, Abulfaz Elchibey alleged that the region was taken too easily because help arrived from the Russian military division stationed in Armenia. This charge was refuted by the operation's commander, Gurgen Daribaltayan and others since "Moscow [government] was not in total control of Armenian military operations. Armenia's western neighbor, Turkey halted humanitarian aid coming sent through its borders. The United States also condemned the offensive, issuing a "sharp rebuke" to the Armenian government.

On April 30, 1993, Turkey and Pakistan co-sponsored United Nations Security Council Resolution 822‎ which called for Armenians in the region to withdraw immediately from Kelbajar and other areas of Azerbaijan. Turkey's President Turgut Özal called for military intervention on Azerbaijan's side and set forth on a tour of Turkic former Soviet republics on April 14. (Ozal would die of a heart attack three days later). Iran also condemned the offensive since many refugees in Azerbaijan were fleeing south towards its borders.

References

Bibliography

External links

• Excerpt on the battle on the NKR website