{"id":2122,"date":"2016-08-12T06:40:43","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T06:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2016-08-17T08:46:51","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T08:46:51","slug":"karabakh-army-boosted-by-new-reconnaissance-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2122","title":{"rendered":"Karabakh Army \u2018Boosted By New Reconnaissance Equipment\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sargis Harutyunyan
\nRFE\/RL Armenian Service<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\nNagorno-Karabakh<\/a>

\nNagorno-Karabakh — Mobile artillery units of the self-defence army of Nagorno-Karabakh hold a position outside the settlement of Hadrut, not far from the Iranian border, April 5, 2016<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s Armenian-backed army has received more modern surveillance and reconnaissance equipment after last April\u2019s heavy fighting with Azerbaijani forces, according to its top commander.<\/p>\n

Lieutenant General Levon Mnatsakanian said on Thursday that the lack of such intelligence-gathering equipment is the main reason why his troops were taken by surprise by an Azerbaijani offensive at two sections of \u201cthe line of contact\u201d around Karabakh.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now frontline units of the [Karabakh] Defense Army are equipped with technical means that allow us to gather intelligence from the necessary depth,\u201d Mnatsakanian told a news conference in Stepanakert. \u201cWe are now constantly monitoring Azerbaijani troop movements and actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur capacity to \u2026 know the enemy\u2019s further plans and draw appropriate conclusions has increased,\u201d he said, according to Artsakhpress.am. \u201cWe are now able to gather intelligence from the necessary depth not only in daytime but also at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur troops are now prepared for more large-scale hostilities,\u201d added the general.<\/p>\n

Mnatsakanian did not disclose the types of reconnaissance equipment which he said has been supplied to Karabakh Armenian forces. He might have referred to more sophisticated drones and\/or night-vision devices meant to forestall commando raids by the enemy.<\/p>\n

The Azerbaijani army is thought to have primarily relied on its commando units when it attacked Karabakh Armenian positions in northeastern Karabakh and at a frontline section close to the Iranian border early on April 2. The hostilities, which left at least 190 soldiers from both sides dead, were stopped by a Russian-brokered truce on April 5.<\/p>\n

Armenia\u2019s and Karabakh\u2019s closely integrated armed forces have used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other equipment for intelligence gathering for the past several years.<\/p>\n

The April escalation led to renewed allegations by some of Armenia\u2019s leading information technology (IT) experts that the Armenian military had repeatedly ignored their offers to modernize such devices and even design new ones. The military responded by pledging to significantly step up cooperation with domestic tech companies interested in defense.<\/p>\n

In a related development, Karabakh\u2019s government said last month that it has helped the army build new defense fortifications along the entire \u201cline of contact\u201d since April.<\/p>\n

Karabakh Armenian positions began to be fortified immediately after what many in the conflict zone call a \u201cfour-day war.\u201d Virtually all local construction firms were mobilized for the effort. RFE\/RL correspondents witnessed some of that construction work later in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sargis Harutyunyan RFE\/RL Armenian Service Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s Armenian-backed army has received more modern surveillance and reconnaissance equipment after last April\u2019s heavy fighting with Azerbaijani forces, [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflicts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2124,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions\/2124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}