Today marks birthday of Azerbaijan's Jewish-descent National Hero Albert Agarunov

Today marks the 53rd birthday of Azerbaijan’s late Jewish-descent National Hero, Albert Agarunov.

Agarunov will be commemorated by his comrades-in-arms, First Karabakh War veterans, and members of the public in Baku’s Alley of Martyrs, where he was buried, Caliber.Az reports.

Albert Agarunov was born in Azerbaijan into a Mountain Jew family living in the suburb Amirjan village of Baku. He has started his military career in the Soviet army, where he served as a tank commander from 1987-1989.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Azerbaijan’s declaration of independence in 1991, Agarunov joined the Azerbaijani military and went through a voluntary service from 1991-1992.

The hero went to the battlefield in 1991 shortly after a war broke out in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan due to Armenia’s military aggression. Agarunov was promoted to tank commander during the war for the defence of the city of Shusha in 1992.

Nine Armenian tanks and two armored trucks of the Armenian forces have been eliminated by Agarunov’s crew during battles in 1991. He has invented his own style of attack, known by his comrades as the Jewish Sandwich. Successful deployment of his tactic, which resembled the well-known “one shot, one kill” method, has led to destruction of two more tanks in 1992. Armenians reportedly offered five million Russian rubles for his capture at the time.

On May 8, 1992, when Shusha was occupied by Armenia, Agarunov could not survive a sniper fire while trying to move the bodies of his dead fellow soldiers from the battlefield.