AZERBAIJAN - US Lobbyists.

Ilham has also inherited his father's contacts with influential lobbyists in Washington, including Jewish leaders. His father had developed close links with US Vice President Dick Cheney, who until he joined George W. Bush's presidential ticket in 2000 was the CEO of Halliburton. This oil services company has been operating in Azerbaijan for years. Before Bush ran for the presidency in 2000, as governor of Texas, he was also close to other oilmen with connections to Heydar Aliyev.

Lloyd Bentsen, once a treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, has been a shareholder in Frontera Resources, a US oil services firm which has been working in Azerbaijan. Frontera is chaired by another Texan, William White, a deputy secretary of energy in the Clinton administration.

The national security chief under the previous Bush administration, Brent Scowcroft, was reportedly paid $100,000 in 1996 by Pennzoil for providing consultations on international projects, including E&P in Azerbaijan. Scowcroft was said to have earned a handsome director's fee from the company, with Pennzoil President Tom Hamilton having become a friend of Heydar Aliyev.

AIOC has been a client of former secretary of state James Baker's law firm. Baker served in the former Bush administration. Consulting firm JHS Associates of John Sununu, former White House chief of staff in the previous Bush administration, was contracted by the Baku government during Heydar Aliyev's visit to the US in July/August 1997. Carter national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has advised to BP, with AIOC promoting Baku's cause in USA.

Heydar Aliyev Background: Born in Nakhichevan in May 1923, Heydar Aliyev was educated by the Soviet system and spent his career rising rapidly through Communist Party ranks. From 1941 he served in the Azeri State Security Organisation. In 1969 he became party first secretary as well as KGB chief at Baku.

In the 1970s, then Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev made Aliyev a member of the Soviet Communist Party's Politburo, the most powerful body in the USSR. At the time Azerbaijan experienced an economic boom.

In 1986, about a year after Gorbachev took over, Aliyev was quietly pushed out of power in Baku. He spent the following years in Nakhichevan, where he became head of that republic. From late 1992 to June 1993, Aliyev publicly carped at the style of leadership of Azerbaijan's then president Abulfaz Elchibey (who had been elected in June 1992, and was intensely pro-Ankara) and quietly but efficiently rebuilt his political base in Baku.

That base had timely use in June 1993 when Elchibey fled Baku to Nakhichevan, to escape a military rebellion led by Col. Suret Gusseinov, who was co-ordinating with Aliyev. As Aliyev later put it, he was "invited to return to Baku to keep the seat warm for Elchibey until the crisis is resolved".

Aliyev, as "acting president" and parliament speaker, organised a referendum on Elchibey's leadership. The outcome, on Aug. 28, 1993, was in Aliyev's favour. On Sept. 2 parliament set the date for the next presidential election. On Oct. 3, 1993 Aliyev was elected president by parliament. Immediately the former Soviet apparatchik took direct control of the oil sector.

Literature on Aliyev's rule then distributed in Baku described how his determination to build the country's industries under the Soviets (he headed the first air-conditioner factory) had inspired confidence in him by the Azeri people and by Moscow. Just before the November 1995 parliamentary elections, the discovery of a "plot" to kill Aliyev was followed by a crackdown on the opposition.

Western monitors expressed "unease" at the way the polls were conducted, but Aliyev's party won with a clear majority. In a parallel vote, Azeris gave 91.9% backing to a new constitution boosting Aliyev's powers at the expense of parliament. The ruling party won an overwhelming majority again in the parliamentary held on Nov. 5, 2000.

On the following day, the OSCE and the Council of Europe issued a hard-hitting report condemning "serious irrgularities" in the elections. Senior OSCE official Gerard Stoudmann said: "I witnessed a crash course in different methods of manipulation". The report said: "Voting was marred by numerous instances of serious irregularities including a completely flawed counting process, manipulated turnout figures, production of either false protocols or no protocols at all, multiple voting and series of apparently identical signatures on the voter list".

Murtuz Aleskerov, then the parliament speaker, was a close ally of Aliyev. Aliyev often made him acting ruler before leaving on foreign visits. But under constitutional changes, the speaker became the third in the line of power next to the prime minister. This meant the speaker was not to become interim president if and when Aliyev died. It was speculated that after the vote on Aug. 24, 2002, Aliyev was to make his son Ilham prime minister so that he could succeed him in the presidency.

Later on, however, Aliyev and his allies steered the situation in such a way as to boost his son Ilham's chances to win the presidential elections which were held in October 2003. Despite all charges of irregularities committed and intimidations by pro-Aliyev gangs, leaders of the Western powers embraced the new president as the father was dying.

Artur Rasizadeh, the prime minister since 1996, keeps a low profile. He concentrates on the economy and administrative matters. One of Rasizadeh's key aides is Yaqub Eyyubov, a deputy prime minister who devotes more of his time to the petroleum sector and the role of Socar. In March 2006, Eyyubov told the parliament that Socar's development of its share of the offshore Guneshli field, which accounts for a major part of the state company's oil and gas output, included a plan to invest $224 million to boost its production of natural gas from 4.5 BCM/year now to 9.3 BCM/year by 2010.

After an Iranian gunboat ordered two BP-operated survey vessels to leave the disputed offshore Alov block on July 23 2001, Premier Rasizadeh summoned Tehran's Ambassador to Baku, Ahad Gazai, and gave him a letter of protest demanding an explanation.

Heydar Babayev is the country's minister of economic development. He took up this key portfolio in October 2005 when Farhad Aliyev was fired from the post and arrested on charges of plotting against President Ilham Aliyev's regime. Babayev is close to the new president.

Farhad Aliyev and his brother Rafik belong to the second wealthiest clan in Azerbaijan next to the president's - though the two families are not related (Aliyev is one of the most common family names in Azerbaijan). Farhad was the leading reformist in the Azeri government. His brother Rafik runs AzPetrol, the biggest gasoline/fuel retailer in Azerbaijan. AzPetrol is one of the companies and interests owned by this Aliyev family.