العربية This report contains extremely graphic imagery, including injuries and fatalities. Multiple protesters in Iraq have been killed after being struck by 40mm “less lethal” rounds. Over the last few weeks, Iraq has experienced significant unrest after protesters took to the streets, protesting the lack of jobs, poor public services and widespread corruption. Scores of…
In recent weeks, there have been numerous large public demonstrations in Iraq. These demonstrations have been met with force by security forces, including use of riot control agents. In recent days, some people have suffered from medical problems, possibly as a result of exposure to chemicals used by security forces. Starting approximately from 29 October…
Iran says it can hack American drones operating in the Middle East and take control of them — and it has released a video purporting to back up its claims. Back in February 2019, Iran’s semi-official Fars News claimed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intercepted the broadcasts of U.S. UAVs above Iraq and…
In early May 2019, it was reported that agricultural areas of central and northern Iraq were being set ablaze — allegedly by remaining pockets of fighters from the so-called Islamic State. The motive was said to have been punishment of farmers who refused to pay protection money to the terrorist organization. There is evidence that in…
During the monitoring of the ongoing situation in Syria and Iraq via open-access satellite imagery, a curious situation presented itself in early January at the Mosul Lake. A black sludge stream resembling an oil spill appeared in the northwest part of the lake. The sludge stream disappeared late January, only to show up again on…
Iraq is on fire. Since late June, media has reported on wildfires in northern parts of Iraqi Kurdistan among the border with Turkey, along the border with Iran in the northeast and in the southeast of Iraq at the Hawizeh marshes, bordering Iran. A hazardous cocktail of climate change-induced increased summer heat, water shortages, military…
With few exceptions, everything that appears in your browser can be downloaded and transformed into useable data formats, with many organisations or individuals maintain complex and publicly accessible datasets containing valuable information. Despite being publicly viewable, in many cases the underlying data is not able to be downloaded and further analysed. This guide will focus…
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…
In mid 2012, the European intelligence and security community was confronted with a sudden outflow of citizens traveling to Syria, and later to Iraq. Quickly after its violent escalation in 2011, the Syrian uprising seemed to attract large numbers of religiously motivated combatants from all over the world. The Netherlands was no exception as the…
A version of this article was also published on Airwars. The international Coalition fighting the so-called Islamic State (IS) has published dozens of videos purportedly showing airstrikes against targets of the group in Syria and Iraq through the video-sharing social medium YouTube. Bellingcat has crowdsourced the geolocation of these videos, and this article serves as an…
