Azerbaijani Mobs on Rampage Near Iranian Border, Tass Says

A drunken or drug-using Soviet mob rampaged for three days on the Iranian frontier, wrecking buildings and communications, threatening to kill border guards and trying to enter Iran illegally, it was reported Tuesday.

The “unprecedented barbarous actions” in the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan caused millions of dollars in damage, the Tass news agency said.

It was the latest spasm of violence in the Soviet Caucasus, inflamed the past two years by strife among Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians and other ethnic groups.

Tass said the spree of destruction in Nakhichevan, 1,200 miles south of Moscow, began Sunday and continued until Tuesday. It blamed “extremist forces,” but gave few clues as to their motives.

The crowd, “high on drugs or alcohol,” rampaged along a distance of more than 85 miles of the Nakhichevan part of the Soviet-Iranian border, destroying or burning buildings, communications lines, poles and border signs, Tass said.

“Threats were also heard to burn down the border stations and kill the border guards and their families,” Tass said.

In its dispatch also read on the evening television news program “Vremya,” Tass said “irresponsible elements” were trying to aggravate tensions in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus as a whole, but was not more explicit.