CNN hit with defamation lawsuit by Azerbaijan after country claims 'blatant fake' report on Iran war put its citizens in danger of being bombed

By RUTH STYLES, US SENIOR REPORTER Published: 16:23, 19 August 2026 | Updated: 16:26, 19 August 2026 CNN is facing a defamation lawsuit over an allegedly ‘false’ report published in June that claimed Azerbaijan had allowed Israel to launch attacks on Iran from its territory. The suit, which was filed on Monday in Delaware by lawyers acting for the Central Asian country and obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail, says CNN’s ‘reckless’ reporting put the lives of its citizens at risk and could have dragged it into the conflict. Azerbaijan has repeatedly insisted it did not allow Israel to launch attacks from its soil and has never been a party to the Iran war that began on February 28 when US and Israeli forces launched massive airstrikes on the country. The strikes, which killed the country’s fanatical leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day, were aimed at defanging the Islamic Republic, ending its nuclear aspirations and removing the threat it poses to the wider Middle East where it has a long history of causing havoc. Furious Azerbaijani officials told the Daily Mail that they had repeatedly tried to correct the story directly with CNN only to have their overtures rebuffed. The report, which was published on June 5, was entitled: ‘Exclusive: Israel sent troops to Azerbaijan during Iran war, sources say’. It features a photo of heavily armed Israeli Defense Force [IDF] soldiers and claims ‘elite military and intelligence units’ were deployed to ‘several locations’ in the south of the country, close to its border with Iran. The report was written by Tal Shalev, a senior reporter based in the broadcaster’s Jerusalem bureau, and veteran producer Tim Lister who is based in Spain. Azerbaijani ambassador to the US, Khazar Ibrahim, wrote to CNN on June 6 and flatly denied the claims made in the outlet's report First responders inspect a destroyed car at the site of a residential building hit in an overnight strike during the U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan Province, northwestern Iran in March In a statement, Azerbaijan’s media organization Via Brown Rudnick said: ‘The circulation of blatant fake information by a world-renowned transnational media company without any reference to any facts is considered a deliberate and gross information manipulation. ‘CNN's report violated basic principles of professional journalism, including media ethics and balance. ‘The disinformation spread by CNN is a political provocation aimed at Azerbaijan and regional security as a whole.’ An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, angrily accused the broadcaster of acting as ‘a propaganda tool for hybrid warfare’ and said the report risked escalating tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran. The dispute will now be slugged out in court, with Azerbaijan saying the report amounted to defamation and calling the broadcaster’s claims ‘demonstrably and knowingly false and recklessly exacerbate geopolitical tensions in an already volatile region [sic]’. According to the lawsuit, Azerbaijan’s fear of escalation because of the report is well founded, with lawyers for the country pointing to statements made by senior regime official Ali Larijani and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [ICRG]. Larijani had threatened neighboring countries that participated in the US and Israeli attacks in a March 2026 broadcast, saying: ‘The countries of the region must either prevent the use of their soil by America against Iran themselves, or we will.’ In July, the ICRG released a statement that also dangled the specter of further attacks over countries in the region, writing: ‘Countries that host the aggressor American military and have placed their land at the disposal of the aggressor criminals for attacks on Iran should be prepared to receive a corresponding response, and should activate their civil defence [sic] units to safeguard the lives of their citizens and move them away from likely targets.’ Given Iran’s numerous threats, the lawsuit says, ‘CNN’s false claims are precisely calibrated to draw Azerbaijan into a regional war’. According to the complaint, Azerbaijani officials repeatedly tried to get the report taken down and took part in an on-record exchange of emails with the broadcaster in which they vehemently denied the country had been used as a base for Israeli fighters. The Azerbaijani ambassador to the US, Khazar Ibrahim, also wrote to CNN on June 6 and flatly denied the claims. As of this week, the CNN article remains live, has not been amended in any way and includes passages charting the ‘low-profile’ relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan. ‘We stand by our reporting,’ a CNN spokesperson said when contacted by the Daily Mail. Despite its proximity to Iran, Azerbaijan has largely avoided being hit by projectiles fired by the ICRG to date. It was hit once in March when two drones hit close to a secondary school Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Republic that gained independence in August 1991, formally recognized Israel as a sovereign country and began diplomatic relations with it in April 1992. Since then, Baku and Jerusalem have developed close trading ties with Azerbaijan providing Israel with large quantities of oil. Israel, meanwhile, sells the Central Asian state advanced weaponry – including its advanced Iron Dome aerial defense system. Despite its proximity to Iran, Azerbaijan has largely avoided being hit by projectiles fired by the ICRG to date. Although surrounding countries, among them the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, as well as Israel and Jordan have been repeatedly fired on by Iran, Azerbaijan has only been hit once – in March when two drones hit close to a secondary school and Nakhichevan Airport.