November 9, 2015
“We intervened in Syria… yesterday evening with a strike on an oil supply center near Deir Ezzor on the border between Iraq and Syria,” Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced today. Given the location of the strikes, it’s likely the fighters were launched from their forward location in the Kingdom of Jordan. Satellite imagery has confirmed…
November 4, 2015
By Type 63
Beginning September 30th of this year, Russian airstrikes and heavy support to the Syrian government have been the cause of significant study and reporting. While the immediate effects can be seen from gun camera footage, videos released from groups hit, and trying to extract the truth from the exaggerations by government sources, what is unclear…
November 4, 2015
By Nathan Patin
On 20 October 2015, Russian airstrikes were reported by local groups to have hit the Syrian town of Sarmin in Idlib governorate, killing at least 12 people. According to reports, the building Russia is alleged to have bombed is a field hospital run by the Syrian-American Medical Society (SAMS) and was the ninth such attack Russia has been accused…
November 1, 2015
On October 1st 2015 reports of Russian airstrikes hitting a mosque in the town of Jisr al-Shughur in Idlib began appearing online. This included reports from local activists posted on social media, and video footage showing what was claimed to be damage to the Omar bin Al-Khattab mosque, in the north of the town. The claims were…
November 1, 2015
Digital Globe imagery dated September 14, 2015 on left / April 28, 2015 right The latest commercial satellite imagery shows some new developments at Iran’s ISOICO shipyard near Bostanu. In September, the yard made further progress on the country’s soon-to-be largest dry dock. Imagery shows that shipyard workers had moved the dock’s caisson in place…
October 29, 2015
Transparency International’s Government Defence Index is a unique resource that collects evidence and insights on malpractice in the defence and security sector, worldwide. The most recent version was released today. As the majority of the research for this project involved gathering openly accessible information online (with a very limited part of the evidence coming from closed sources),…
October 28, 2015
By Dan Kaszeta
Recently, two Turkish deputies (Eren Erdem and Ali Şeker) of the opposition CHP party have claimed that the Turkish government procured the Sarin nerve agent that was used in the 21 August 2013 chemical attack near Damascus. These allegations are similar to those made by Seymour Hersh in a series of articles in London Review…
October 26, 2015
By Bellingcat Investigation Team
Bellingcat began geolocating and independently verifying videos published by the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) after initial reports from the ground indicated that Russian airstrikes destroyed positions held by the Free Syrian Army and other groups rather than the Islamic State (or ISIS). Bellingcat has geolocated, verified, and visualized each airstrike published by the Russian…
October 6, 2015
Since October 4th, video footage of an unusual munition has been shared by opposition groups in Syria The video shows a munition dropped from an aircraft, followed by a group of detonations just above the ground. Video posted on October 4th from Kafr Halab, located south-west of Aleppo, also shows a similar pattern of explosions in…
October 6, 2015
By Bellingcat Investigation Team
Yesterday Bellingcat launched an effort to use the Checkdesk platform to geolocate and collect additional information on videos posted by the Russia Ministry of Defence showing their airstrikes in Syria. This was triggered after the discovery that two videos the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed were filmed in or near ISIS controlled Raqqa were geolocated to…
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