The Sabereen News Telegram channel, which purportedly broadcasts from Iraq, spread sensational information claiming that Azerbaijan sent air bombs and laser air attack missiles to Ukraine, and shared photos of eight aircraft flight permits with this caption:
"Exclusive. Despite Azerbaijan's announcement that it will remain neutral, we present a leaked file that shows the role of the Azerbaijani Government in supporting the Government of Ukraine and NATO against the army of the Russian Federation in the war."
One minute later, this publication was followed by another.
"According to these secret documents, the Government of Azerbaijan, despite its declaration of neutrality, supplies air bombs to Ukraine. Deliveries were made through Sudan and Poland. We have eight documents on hand: shipping documents. Meridian is a company affiliated with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, and Cihaz is affiliated with the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. According to the documents, although it is not clear what kind of bombs they are, most likely these are Su-24 designed for bombers. As Sabereen correspondents, we want to advise the Azerbaijani government: Ukraine is not the best partner for 'secret supplies', because everything will be revealed soon."
Ten hours after publication, a link to this information was posted on the Sabereen News Twitter page. Thus, the media was presented with a new topic and a unique platform for writing anti-Azerbaijani articles. Telegram channel "wingsofwar", broadcasting from Russia, became the driving power of this campaign. This is what the channel writes:
"Azerbaijan sent air missiles to Ukraine, despite its neutral status. According to documents released by the Iraqi telegram channel Sabereen News, in April 2022, Azerbaijan secretly provided weapons and ammunition to the Ukrainian military. According to the documents, this operation took place between the Cihaz Association of the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan and the Ukrspetsexport State Concern of Ukraine. Transportation from the capital of Sudan, Khartoum, to the famous Polish military airfield Rzeszow was carried out by the Ukrainian cargo airline Meridian on flight MEM5002 on April 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 and 30."
The information states that the cargoes are classified as Precision Guided Air Bomb and Precision Guided Air Bomb INERT: "Thus, Azerbaijan was directly involved in arming the Armed Forces of Ukraine, despite the statement about maintaining neutrality in relation to the parties to the conflict. Two important questions arise: how many of these missiles were used against Russia and the LPR, and why did Azerbaijan need to participate in this dirty game? Is it for dubious income?"
After that, many Armenian websites, referring to the Iraqi telegram channel Sabereen News, spread the report of the Russian telegram channel "Wings of War" with great speed and enthusiasm.
This "study" under the heading "Azerbaijan supplied air bombs to Ukraine, despite its declared neutrality" was published by the Russian pro-Armenian news agency Regnum, EADaily, IA Realist (editor-in-chief is Armenian Sarkis Tsaturyan), famous for its frivolous, provocative information and misinformation Tsargrad, Armenpress (the official news agency of Armenia), 1Lurer.am, civic.am (operated with the support of the Soros Foundation), Voskanapat (an illegal website of the Armenian special services), the English-language news site news.am, and other sites.
Faktyoxla Lab. Has checked the authenticity of the report of the Iraqi telegram channel Sabereen News and the published documents.
Now let's look at the facts.
- Indeed, the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan, together with Turkiye, produces high-precision aircraft missiles QFAB-250 LG. ( Source ). There is nothing secretive here, and there is enough information about it in open sources. The information shared by Wings of War, one of the admins of which is an Armenian, was taken from the indicated sources.
A sensational message spread by a telegram channel reports on the Cihaz Production Union of the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan. This post includes a link from the website of the Kuwaiti Embassy in Azerbaijan. But, what does this link, which is presented as a reliable source, say?
Unbelievable, but true. This link says the following:
"The Ambassador of the State of Kuwait in Baku, Mr. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Rumi, the 1st Secretary and Deputy Head of the Mission, Mr. Faisal Almutairi, and the 1st Secretary and Consul of the Embassy Bader Aladvani met with the General Director of the Cihaz Production Union under the Ministry of Defense Industry of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Falah Guliyev."
That's it! Yes, they listed a link that is unrelated to the information they shared as the source. What kind of information load falls on the meeting of the owner of the Azerbaijan company with the ambassador of a foreign country, and what does all this have to do with alleged shippents from Baku to Khartoum (as they say)? A similar case is seen in the information about the state concern of Ukraine Ukrspetsexport. So, they added a link to Wikipedia as a reliable source in the information section about military cooperation between the production association Cihaz and the state concern of Ukraine.
- Both Sabereen News and Wings of War note that the transportation of weapons was carried out by the Ukrainian air transport company Meridian. There is even a link. Indeed, Meridian is one of the hundreds of companies in Ukraine providing cargo transportation services. It is enough to click on the link to read about the company. Let's return to the photos of documents posted by both Telegram channels.
The flight code of this company is indicated in the documents published by the Iraqi Telegram channel: MEM. If the papers say MEM 5002, then the cargo was transported by aircraft under the code MEM5002 of the Meridian company. The numbers after the MEM code may change depending on the aircraft type. For example, MEM 3058, MEM 3503, etc. You can follow this link and get acquainted with the schedule of transportation carried out by the Meridian company on An-12B aircraft to different cities of the world.
This screenshot only shows delivery routes completed in April. If you pay attention, the code "MEM5002", mentioned in the report of the Iraqi Telegram channel, does not occur even once. Most of the flights in April were indeed to the Rzeszow airfield (RZE) in Poland. But the starting point for none of them is Khartoum (Sudan). The starting points are Burgas (BOJ) and Sofia (SOF) in Bulgaria. It turns out that either the distributed documents are false, or Meridian did not carry out the transportation. UR-CAJ seen in the table is the type of aircraft operating the flight.
According to its website, cargo handled by the Meridian air transport company is usually (about 90% of flights) carried out by Antonov AN-12 aircraft. However, Meridian was reported to be transporting the mentioned "dangerous goods" by Boeing-type plane.
And now, let's try to clarify the authenticity of the shared documents. This paper is an example of a travel document used in air travel.
We made these adjustments on one of the travel papers made public by Sabereen News to illustrate the comparison.
The guide below shows what can be written to each marked cell:
Cell 2. The account number of the party sending the goods. If there is no account number, this cell is left blank. It is suspicious that the account number of the Cihaz Production Union of the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan is not written here.
Cell 4. In this section, the account number of the consignee is recorded. Otherwise, it remains blank. Can we now imagine that the largest arms dealer in Ukraine does not have an account number? This is suspicious.
Cell 5. Name and city of the agent representing the shipping company - Not filled
Cell 6. In this box, the name and card number of the third party must be entered. It is not a required field
Cell 12. The price declared for customs must be mentioned. - It is doubtful that this was not done.
Cell 14. The cost of insurance must be indicated. Left blank - suspicious
Cell 15. Usage Information: Should include shipper's confirmation number, specific handling instructions, specific information for onward shipment, reference to relevant air freight or shipping documents or other applicable instructions. This section is incomplete and only has the generic label "dangerous item".
Cell 21. Tariff/Duty: This is the tariff or fee applied to the delivery - says "agreed" – suspicious
Cell 22. Total: The total value of each entry can be displayed on the same horizontal line. If there is more than one entry, you can enter the total amount. It also says "agreed" - suspicious
Now attention! Typically these documents have a three-digit code at the top followed by an eight-digit code. The first three digits are the carrier code and the remaining eight are the trade item code. For example:
Now let's look at the document presented to us:
There is no company with the code 000 among the carriers.
In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the spelling of the names of the sending and receiving companies in a particular "bold" font. At the same time, a completely different font and style written in the information field about the company that transports the goods do not go unnoticed.
Since the EXIF data in these documents has been changed or completely removed, it is impossible to give absolutely accurate information about the originality of the photos. Instead, you can determine that the document has been modified by special editing programs.
Since photos are distributed in pdf format (in fact, it is known why this is done so - ed. note), you must first change this format to JPG, and then conduct research. In this case, i.e. due to the fact that the photographs are not original, the format has been changed, although we cannot show the full outline of the work done to assemble the document, we can demonstrate that falsification was committed in many details. For example, let's focus on signatures. There are eight documents issued on different dates. Pay attention to the form and place of the signatures affixed to each document. They are all drawn in the same shape and all in the same place (see Location of the first letter of the signature). It was edited with a photo editing program in such an untidy form that it can be clearly seen even with an ordinary inspection program.
And in this photo, color details attract attention. In photo analysis programs, this situation occurs only when subsequent editing is performed on the document, and the visible color parts have the “added to the document later” note.
Here we pay attention to the contours marked in red. It is obvious that the part with the seal and signature was added to this document later. There is no doubt that the document has been altered by photomontage programs.
- Now look at the flights and routes between the cities of Khartoum and Rzeszow in April. You can get a specific result by entering dates, flight code and aircraft through popular archived flight route tracking websites. Flightradar24 premium members can search all flights in the last 3 months. When we entered the designated indicators in the appropriate cells, we did not find any information about the route mentioned in the document. That is, at the time indicated in the document, not a single aircraft was registered flying from Khartoum to Rzeszow with the specified flight, aircraft and cargo codes.
So where did this information come from and what was wrong?
When we were doing the research, we came across information shared by “Gerjon”, who became famous on Twitter as an aerial expert and photo researcher.
He tweeted: “In late Mar 2022, two Ukraine International Airlines aircraft returned to service: UR-PSI and UR-PSL.
Since then, UR-PSI did *15 FLIGHTS* between Khartoum and Rzeszów (Ukraine aid hub), visting the military apron at KRT, and got hidden on tracking sites.
Starting on 19-20 Apr, UR-PSI is now blocked on all major tracking websites: RadarBox24, flightaware and flightradar24. In contrast, sister aircraft UR-PSL remains visible.
UR-PSL is based in Chisinau and flies to other destinations (no Khartoum and no Rzeszów).”
If you pay attention, there were indeed flights from Khartoum to Rzeszow (Poland) in April, but these flights were not operated by the Meridian company. We mentioned this at the beginning of our investigation. Thus, the allegation that the Meridian cargo airline was linked to the information disseminated by Sabereen News is false.
But we note one point, that the fact of sending weapons from Azerbaijan to Ukraine was asserted in another tweet by "Gerjon". He said that in April he spread information about the shipment of weapons from Azerbaijan to Ukraine. And these 9 flights were carried out by Green Flag Aviation. The system shows that the planes of this company flew 12 times to Baku and 13 times to Istanbul. The author, referring to this resource, claims that Azerbaijani-made weapons could be delivered along the Baku-Khartoum- Rzeszów-Ukraine route. An expert on aircraft, flights and airports, referring to this source, without any reliable facts, claims that weapons from Azerbaijan could be transported along this route. There are no facts, no arguments, only assumptions. He further explains his opinion as follows: “I registered 12 flights to Baku with the code GNF301 and 13 flights to Istanbul with the code GNF980 between February 24 and July 30. Last year these figures were 8-8 respectively. You can see the growth." Again, there are no facts. Just because the number of flights has increased, does this raise suspicions about the supply of weapons? The analogy goes like this: cows get fat because it often rains.
The next argument is more ridiculous: "Green Flag Aviation" is especially interesting. “According to this website's investigation, the GNF is controlled by the Sudanese General Intelligence Directorate. We have previously observed Il-76 GNF (ST-EWX) flights to Libya in 2020. This airline deserves special attention.”
With all this, it is not clear from the given arguments why Azerbaijan is accused of this case. And if the routes of the designated flights are correct, is this an indication of the fact that there are cargoes sent directly from Azerbaijan to Khartoum or Ukraine? It can be seen from the flight path that the planes that took off from Azerbaijan landed at the Incirlik base in Turkiye. Azerbaijan and Turkiye are military-strategic allies. The mentioned missiles are produced jointly. If a weapon that is a product of joint cooperation is sent to Turkiye, what is illegal here? If some country or company buys it from there and adds it to their arsenal, this is another topic. But still, what is the fault or the role of Azerbaijan in this situation?
Finally, about Sabereen News, which disseminated this information.
This name, meaning "patient", is taken from the 65th verse of Surah Al-Anfal of the Qur'an: "If there are twenty patient among you, they will overcome two hundred. And if there are one hundred of you, they will overcome one thousand of the disbelievers, for they are a people who do not comprehend." Sabereen News appeared on January 11, 2020 as a small channel in the Telegram social networking app. At first, the channel mainly broadcast news about proxy forces, related to Iran operating in Iraq, their attacks on US convoys and humanitarian aid, and US military activities in that country. Since the end of 2020, it has become the most influential channel of resistance on social networks. While most telegrams -resistance channels have 10,000-20,000 subscribers, Sabereen had more than 180,000 subscribers. After the publication of the mentioned information about Azerbaijan, the number of subscribers reached 241,000.
After the start of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine at the end of February 2022, the channel began to circulate a wide range of anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western materials about the war. On March 24, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a research article on the information about the war disseminated by channel, which has become a fighter of Russian propaganda and disinformation policy abroad.
The study emphasized that Sabereen had adopted a news policy that supports official Moscow, and spreads propaganda and disinformation against the West and Ukraine, since Russia's preparations for war. It is reported that on March 22, a Sabereen correspondent prepared a video report from the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine, which is under Russian occupation, and voiced opinions in line with Russia's interests. (Source 1, Source 2) This situation, that is, the presence of a Sabereen correspondent on the Crimean peninsula, was assessed as a fact of the existence of relations between Russian officials and them.
On April 9, 2021, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a research article on the Sabereen news channel. It mentions sources from which the channel receives technical and financial support, including armed groups of Shiite militants, as well as the State Broadcasting Company of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The investigation also states that the channel organizes various cyber attacks, including hacking websites, spreads disinformation of various directions and purposes, and opened channels in Azerbaijani and Turkish on Telegram, but these are currently inactive. (Source). In addition, in the ‘Sabereen News’ Telegram article, Sabereen Security Research and Analysis (sometimes referred to as Ababil and al-Maymun - ed. note) was also used as a "research channel".
In another study, published on April 11, 2022, the institute reported that it had suspended its activities from March 28 to April 8, and released the famous sentence on former Sepah Quds Force commander Qasim Soleimani.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA linked the suspension of the channel to the news that it had insulted one of the representatives of Iraq's Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the country's Shiite clerics. For this reason, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has raised the possibility of Sepah intervening in the short-term suspension of the channel.
The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Sepah) also has special forces units called Saberin. The brigade was created in 2000 and is still active. However, there is no information in open sources about whether there are links between this brigade and the Sabereen Channel.
It is noteworthy that the emblems of many new groups are similar to those of the Iranian IKK, and some of these groups copy the names and symbols of pre-existing Shia and Sunni armed groups.
This is the Asaib Ahl al-Haq logo.
Most sources write that Sabereen News is associated with the Asaib Ahl al-Haq group. In 2006, this group broke away from the Jaish al-Mahdi group and became an independent group and was formed from Shia militias inclined towards Iran.
Sabereen aggregates real and fake news from the resistance media space, as well as publishing statements and information provided by inside sources representing various militias and front groups.
Investigations show that Sabereen also has a longstanding special relationship with Ashab al-Kahf (AK) and publishes some claims and statements against it on behalf of the group. Ashab al-Kahf is also closely associated with Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
Investigations conducted show that the Islamic Radio and Television Union, the Iraqi Radio and Television Association, the Lebanese Hezbollah and affiliated organizations provided technical support and funding to Sabereen.
Sabereen News has recently been recalled for its cyberattacks in several countries.
On April 22, 2022, cyberattacks were carried out on three Turkish websites: The President of Turkey, Anadolu Agency and the portals of the Baikar company, which produces the Bayraktar UAV. While the cyberattacks took the websites down for a short time, they were up and running within minutes.
On April 23, 2022, it carried out a cyberattack on the General Directorate of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia. The channel also announced that it has shut down operating systems in Saudi Arabia's critical infrastructure due to the month of Ramadan.
On April 24, 2022, the Al-Tahira group published information about cyber attacks on the websites of the Iraqi TV channels UTV and Al-Fallujah TV. After the attack, Sabereen also claimed (without proof) that the sites were infected with viruses.
Our goal in writing all this was to find out how the seal and signature belonging to one of the official institutions of Azerbaijan, found in documents leaked to Sabereen, were obtained. Interestingly, in April 2022, information was leaked that the internet resources of the Compulsory Insurance Bureau of the Republic of Azerbaijan were subjected to a cyber attack. The attack was reportedly carried out by an unknown hacker under the pseudonym "AngryBoy", believed to be Iranian. According to the information spread by the hacker on the internet resources “DarkNet”, it was alleged that the entire system of the Compulsory Insurance Bureau was destroyed and more than 40 million pieces of information were captured. In previous years, it is known that such cyber attacks were carried out in Azerbaijan against the databases of various private and public institutions. For example, in 2014, a hacker group called the Islamic Cyber Army launched cyberattacks to steal data from numerous private banks, government and military websites.
There are serious doubts as to whether this information was passed on to Sabereen or whether the cyber-attack group was linked to the channel, and we will conduct an investigation to find out.
Result:
- The information about sending air bombs and laser missiles from Azerbaijan to Ukraine is fake
- The air travel orders published by the Sabereen News telegram channel were created using photo editing programs and are fake.
- The post of "Wings of War" with a link to the telegram channel Sabereen News is not based on any facts.
