debkafile Special: Last week, the Azerbaijani police picked up six Iranian secret agents looking for the air bases housing the drones their government purchased from Israel. The agents carried cash, fake passports, automatic pistols, advanced electronic equipment for tracking aircraft and electronic warfare devices for jamming them. Their capture foiled an Iranian plot to trap one of the UAVs as it flew over the Azerbaijani-Iranian Caspian Sea border. As the agents’ clandestine handler, the Iranian culture attaché was barred form returning to Baku.

Iran is alarmed by Azerbaijan’s soaring trade relations with Israel, its ambitions to expand into Mediterranean oil and gas through Israel and large arms purchases from the Jewish state.

Not only Tehran but Moscow too is taking the US military buildup for war with Iran every seriously. Valdimir Putin takes over as Russian president with military units in the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea missile cruisers and Armenia base on the ready.

Analyzing the new US military buildup around Iran, DEBKA-Net-Weekly - in its latest issue out Friday - evaluates where Hillary Clinton's whirlwind trips to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia starting July 1 fit into Washington's overall Iran strategy. How much cooperation can Washington expect from Moscow in a Caspian-based operation?
For some answers, subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly, click here