Independent publications losing Azerbaijani leaders' pictures (8)
I believe the answer is:
imagines
'pictures' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'independent publications losing azerbaijani leaders'' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'independent' could be 'i' and 'i' is found within the answer.
'leaders'' could be 'magi' (magus is a kind of leader) and 'magi' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
(Other definitions for imagines that I've seen before include "Conceives, pictures" , "Fancies" , "Formed a mental image of something not present" , "Conceives in the mind" , "Dreams of" .)