CNN has been hit with a defamation lawsuit over a June report that Azerbaijan says falsely alleged it permitted Israel to carry out attacks on Iran from Azerbaijani territory.
The complaint, filed Monday in Delaware by attorneys representing Azerbaijan and obtained exclusively by Our News Outlet, accuses CNN of “reckless” reporting that officials say endangered Azerbaijani citizens and risked pulling the country into a wider regional conflict.
Azerbaijan has consistently denied allowing Israel to use its soil as a launchpad for strikes and maintains it has never been a participant in the Iran war, which began on February 28 after US and Israeli forces carried out extensive airstrikes against Iran.
Those strikes, which killed Iran’s hardline leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day, were intended to weaken the Islamic Republic, halt its nuclear ambitions and reduce what the US and Israel have described as a long-running threat to stability across the Middle East.
Azerbaijani officials told Our News Outlet they repeatedly attempted to raise objections and seek corrections directly with CNN, but said their efforts were dismissed.
The CNN article, published June 5, carried the headline: “Exclusive: Israel sent troops to Azerbaijan during Iran war, sources say.”
The story included an image of heavily armed Israeli Defense Force [IDF] soldiers and alleged that “elite military and intelligence units” had been deployed to “several locations” in southern Azerbaijan, near the Iranian border.
The report was authored by Tal Shalev, a senior correspondent in CNN’s Jerusalem bureau, and Tim Lister, a veteran producer 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.
Azerbaijan Accuses CNN of ‘Fake Information’
In a statement, a spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s media organization 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.’
Iran Warns Regional Neighbors
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 Our News Outlet.
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’s Close Ties With Israel
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.
