The Arabo Volunteer Detachment () or Arabo Battalion was a paramilitary

Armenian volunteer unit The Armenian volunteer units ( hy, Հայ կամավորական ջոկատներ ''Hay kamavorakan jokatner'') were units composed of Armenians within the Imperial Russian Army during World War I. Composed of several groups at battalion streng ...

during the

First Nagorno-Karabakh War The First Nagorno-Karabakh War, referred to in Armenia as the Artsakh Liberation War ( hy, Արցախյան ազատամարտ, Artsakhyan azatamart) was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in th ...

, composed of Armenians mainly from Armenia and Karabakh, as well as Armenians from abroad. It was an ARF-affiliated unit.

History

The group was originally named after Garegin Nzhdeh. However, the emergence of a group called "Garegin Nzhdeh" among other Armenian groups led to the change of the group's name to "Arabo". "Arabo" was the pseudonym of Arakel Mkhitarian, who revolted against the

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

in the 19th century and was eventually killed by Kurdish groups. The group was established in Yerevan in October 1989 with the participation of Armenian nationalists from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and France, as well as experienced officers and servicemen who served in the Soviet Army. On 9 October 1989, the number of members of the group was 24, and on January 19, 1990, the number of members of the group increased with the arrival of groups of 10, 15, 20.

Operations

At the initial stage, Arabo operated along the Armenia–Azerbaijan border. It took part in the

Capture of Garadaghly The Capture of Garadaghly ( az, Qaradağlının işğalı) was the seizure of Garadaghly, an Azerbaijani-populated village in Khojavend district of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenian volunteer units on 17 February 1992, in the First Nagorno-Karaba ...

, where its fighters, together with fighters from the battalion and from other volunteer units, reportedly gathered about three dozen Azerbaijani captives in a ditch and killed them, as a way to "avenge" the death of another comrade the day before, against the orders of Monte Melkonian. Over 80 members of the Arabo Battalion were killed on June 29, 1992 during the Hasangaya Operation in Aghdara (Martakert) conducted by the Ganja Battalion together with the Tartar Territorial Self-Defense Battalion. The fate of the soldiers was unknown in Armenia, and they were considered missing until 2008, when footage from the time of the war appeared on YouTube showing the corpses of the soldiers.

References

{{Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Military units and formations of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War Armenian militant groups