Azerbaijan: Army Officer Shot Dead By Armenian Sniper

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said that an Armenian sniper shot dead an Azerbaijani army officer on the border between the two countries, which have been locked in a three-decades long dispute over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

There are frequent clashes along the separatist ethnic-Armenian controlled Nagorno-Karabakh front line and along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

A shaky 1994 cease-fire ended a conflict between the two countries over the region, which left some 30,000 dead.

The July 20 incident came as Nagorno-Karabakh reelected on July 19 its separatist leader Bako Sahakian for a second presidential term in elections Baku quickly denounced as "illegal."

At least 11 soldiers from both sides have been reported killed in a series of incidents along the border since early June.

Based on reporting by AFP and Interfax