A Reuters reporter saw at least a dozen people bundled into police vans at a square in the capital Baku, including two Swedish journalists and a woman walking with her young child.

Flyers were scattered on the ground, calling on Aliyev to resign and for an “End to Dictatorship.”

The opposition said several hundred people were detained in various parts of Baku, but this could not be independently verified and police could not be reached for comment.

The abortive protest was the latest attempt by the opposition in the oil-producing ex-Soviet republic to emulate uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

Small protests over the past several weeks have been given short shrift by authorities in the mainly Muslim country of 9 million people, with more than 100 detained in April and March.

Sandwiched between Russia, Iran and Turkey, Azerbaijan is an energy supplier to Europe and a transit route for US troops in Afghanistan — a role rights groups say has cushioned the country from Western criticism of its record on democracy.

Amnesty International says 10 opposition activists face long prison terms for their involvement in the last protest in April.

Analysts see little real threat to Aliyev, president since 2003 when he succeeded his father and long-serving leader Heydar.

Rights groups accuse his government of trampling on democratic freedoms under cover of an oil-fueled economic boom.

But the mainstream opposition is seen as divided and ineffective, its leadership still associated with the chaos and separatist war that marred Azerbaijan’s first years of independence from the Soviet Union.

Aliyev on Friday dismissed the protesters as “anti-national forces.”

“The Azeri state is so strong and political stability is so firm that the Azeri people have said “No” to those elements who would like to undermine our work ... to those who in some cases get orders from circles outside the country,” he said.