Monte Melkonian (in Armenian: in TAO Մոնթէ Մելքոնեան, in RAO Մոնթե Մելքոնյան; sometimes simply referred to by just his first name Monte; November 25, 1957 – June 12, 1993) was a famed Armenian military commander in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. He is largely credited for major military victories against Azerbaijan from the late autumn of 1992 to his death in June 1993. Melkonian had no prior service record in any country's army before being placed in command of an estimated 4,000 men in the war. He had largely built his military experience beginning from the late 1970s and 1980s where he fought against the various splintering factions in the Lebanese Civil War, against Israeli troops in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and was a member of the Armenian militant Marxist-Leninist organization ASALA.

An Armenian-American, Melkonian left the United States and arrived in Iran in 1978 during the beginning of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, taking part in demonstrations against the Shah. Following the collapse of the Shah's monarchy in 1979, he traveled to Lebanon during the height of the civil war and served in an Armenia militia group in the Beirut suburb of Bourj Hammoud. In ASALA, he took part in the assassinations of several Turkish diplomats in Europe during the early to mid-1980s and was later arrested and sent to prison in France. In 1989, he was released and in the following year, acquired a visa to travel to Armenia.

Throughout his tenure, Melkonian carried several different aliases including "Abu Sindi", "Saro", "Timothy Sean McCormack" and "Commander Avo"; the last of which was the name addressed by troops under his command in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. He was killed by Azerbaijani troops on June 12, 1993 in Nagorno-Karabakh and was subsequently buried at Yerablur cemetery in Yerevan, Armenia. He is revered by Armenians as a national hero.