Aghdam
Northeast of Stepanakert, on the highway leading directly into Azerbaijan lies Aghdam.
The Azeri city of 50,000 residents was quickly captured with little fighting as the residents poured out in the face of a string of Armenian battle victories. Despite the lack of fighting, it was completely destroyed, save for the mosque which remained due to the religious nature of the building. At the time of capture, the battle situation was unsure and the military decided to demolish the entire city rather than to risk it being recaptured and immediately used once again as a base of attack just kilometers from the capital of Karabakh.
In the second Karabakh war, Azerbaijan forced the handover of Aghdam to their side in the final ceasefire deal, and 4 years later it was indeed used as one of the points of attack on the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh that ended in the complete ethnic cleansing of Armenians from their native land.
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