BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijan’s security forces killed four members of a group that had been planning to carry out terror acts in the country, the state security service said on Wednesday.

Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim country with a population of about 10 million, is a major energy producer in the Caspian Sea region.

The group, which was eliminated during a special operation, was “loyal to a number of terrorist organizations operating in foreign countries and had been planning to carry out terrorist acts in Azerbaijan,” the security service said in a statement.

One suspect was arrested.</s>Security forces in Azerbaijan have killed four alleged extremists the government suspects were plotting terror attacks, the Caspian Sea country’s State Security Service says.

The service said the suspects were killed in a shoot-out on January 31 during a search operation that was launched after they opened fire at security forces.

A fifth alleged member of the group was taken into custody.

According to the security service, the suspects were connected to an unspecified religious extremist group abroad and planed a series of terrorist attacks on Azerbaijan's territory.

It did not say where the shoot-out took place.

It was impossible to verify the statement by the authorities in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.

Based on reporting by trend.az and Interfax</s>Azerbaijani security forces said Wednesday they had killed four alleged "Daesh terrorists" suspected of plotting attacks in the predominantly Muslim nation.

The special operation on Tuesday was carried out by the State Security Service (SSS) and targeted four Azerbaijani citizens "suspected of planning serious crimes" motivated by "religious extremism," the security agency said in a statement.

They had "pledged allegiance to a terrorist organisation active abroad and were planning terrorist acts across the country," it said, without giving details.

"The group offered armed resistance using automatic rifles and guns," the statement added.

Security services in December killed a suspected Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist who planned to carry out a suicide bombing in the capital Baku's biggest shopping mall.

In February 2016, Azerbaijan arrested eight men for allegedly fighting alongside the Daesh terrorist group in Syria and Iraq.

Local media had previously reported numerous cases of nationals from the officially secular ex-Soviet state fighting alongside Daesh in both the countries.
Four alleged extremists planning terror attacks in Azerbaijan are killed in a shootout with the country's security forces; one suspect is arrested. The State Security Service says the group was connected to an unspecified religious extremist group abroad.