Following an escalation in attacks opposition controlled southern Idlib, cluster munitions have seen increasing use by Syrian government forces on areas across the frontline. In the fourth day of strikes and attacks by the Syrian government and its allies on the town of al-Tah, Idlib, cluster munitions were documented at the site of attacks in…
On Thursday, 2nd August several explosions rocked the Houthi-held city of Hodeidah. The locations of these explosions were reported to be the harbour used for fishing boats and within the vicinity of the al-Thawra Hospital. Since the explosion near the hospital happened immediately after the explosion at the harbour, it appeared that casualties and first responders were being deliberately targeted. Scores of people were killed and wounded in the attack.
On 8 August 2014, the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) held a press conference at the Ukraine Crisis Media Centre in central Kyiv describing how they believed that Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was not the true target of the missile launch that killed 298 people on 17 July 2014, but instead Aeroflot Flight 2074…
On the 4th August, President Maduro of Venezuela gave a speech in Caracas, celebrating the 81st anniversary of the National Guard. However, Maduro never finished this speech, as part-way through two explosions rocked the area. He was quickly hustled off stage by his security detail. Claims rapidly spread on social media that the event had been targeted by drone-borne IEDs (BDIED), which were later supported by official statements by the Venezuelan government.
In the wake of the August 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, Ted Postol attacked Dan Kaszeta’s argument that hexamine, C6H12N4, was a marker for Sarin made by the Syrian government. Postol is a professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kaszeta is a consultant with experience in chemical warfare…
On July 5th 2018, a crowdfunder named Yanny Bruere launched a campaign to fly a giant-sized baby balloon with the head of Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, in response to the Trump baby blimp which made headlines worldwide. Gathering 50,000 pounds in about a week’s time, the campaign quickly gained popularity. In the meantime, however,…
The research was initiated by Jeanne Sanya and conducted collaboratively with Christiaan Triebert. The Russian Ministry of Defence accused the American-led Coalition of bombing a block of civilian buildings in Raqqa, Syria. But a year earlier, the Russians said it was them who targeted leader of the Islamic State in those exact same buildings. What’s…
Le 25 juin 2017, le journal allemand Die Welt a publié le dernier article de Seymour Hersh contestant le récit “mainstream” autour de l’attaque chimique de Khan Cheikhoun (Syrie) le 4 avril 2017. L’attaque, où du sarin a été largué contre la population locale par l’armée de l’air syrienne, a conduit le président Trump à…
À la suite de l’attaque chimique de Douma du 7 avril 2018, une attention particulière a été accordée à deux sites d’impacts où les restes de bouteilles de gaz jaunes ont été découverts. Alors que l’on a beaucoup commenté l’emplacement de ces bouteilles de gaz, une attention moindre a été portée à l’utilisation historique du…
To highlight the progress that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have made under his command, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has cited a military index created by a clickbait military-themed site without any expert, academic, military or government endorsements. This site, GlobalFirepower.com, ranked Ukraine’s military 29th globally in its “2018 Military Strength Ranking.” In his May 8th…
Nerve agents, both in the form of Sarin in Syria and in the form of the so-called Novichok A-234 in the UK, continue to claim both victims and headlines. A recurring theme, repeatedly early on in the Syrian chemical war, and oft-repeated, is that somehow nerve agents are easy to make. Many conspiracy theories and…
Bellingcat is looking for an experienced editor to oversee commissioning, writing, and publication of our investigations. This is an exciting role in a pioneering investigative outfit that works with some of the world’s leading lawyers, think-tanks, NGOs, and media outlets. The right candidate will have a solid understanding of open source investigative techniques, excellent written English, and will be a motivated self-starter. There are opportunities to work on important international investigations and to learn from the best in this field. This role will be mainly home-based.
Bellingcat will be holding a series of five 5-day workshops in September and October 2018 in New York City, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. Please be aware that some workshops will not be open to government employees. Dates The dates of the workshops are listed below: September 17th to 21st – New York City (Open…
لقد أدى انتشار وسائل الإعلام الاجتماعي والهواتف الذكية في جميع أنحاء الشرق الأوسط إلى خلق قدر هائل من الوثائق المتاحة للجمهور حول النزاعات في المنطقة. سواء في شكل مقاطع فيديو أو صور و مقاطع من المعارك والاشتباكات إلى جرائم الحرب المحتملة,و يتم توثيق الكثير من هذه الاشياء بشكل روتيني وتحميلها إلى مواقع مختلفة مثل فيس…
Information from groups involved in international conflicts has never been as accessible as it is now. Rebel groups run social media accounts, video of missile launches are posted to Twitter, and the production value of propaganda has skyrocketed. For researchers and journalists who do not master the Arabic language, the same problems still exist: how…
The spread of social media and smartphones throughout the Middle East has created a truly enormous amount of publicly available documentation of conflicts in the region. Whether in the form of videos or photos, from combat footage to potential war crimes — a lot of things are routinely documented and uploaded to various sites like…
Polar, a fitness app, is revealing the homes and lives of people exercising in secretive locations, such as intelligence agencies, military bases and airfields, nuclear weapons storage sites, and embassies around the world, a joint investigation of Bellingcat and Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent reveals. In January Nathan Ruser discovered that the fitness app Strava revealed sensitive…
Tracing the evolution of communication in the Syrian conflict reveals complex networks of coordination. The lack of direct access is at the core of this evolution—for international actors to provide humanitarian and monitoring support, for regional actors to be included in the decision- making process, and for civilians’ concerns and experiences to be considered. Changing…
A small number of new spaces have become available for the following Bellingcat workshops: Amsterdam June 25th – 29th London July 2nd – July 6th London July 9th – July 13th The workshop will be split into two main sections. The first three days will be dedicated to teaching participants a range of open source investigation…
When browsing through stories on the newly-established media outlet USAReally.com, you may think that you are reading a procedural-generated site that exists entirely from search engine optimization tricks, stealing articles from more established outlets and reposting them as if they were original. However, a closer inspection shows that there are no advertisements on the site…
