April 27, 2018
By Aric Toler
On April 22, the Saudi-led coalition carried out multiple airstrikes on a wedding in Yemen’s Hajjah Governorate, with reports of at least 33 dead, including the bride. Reportedly, the majority of casualties were women and children. Survivors of the attack described how the jets continued to circle the bombing site after the attack, preventing first…
June 9, 2017
Left: Planet imagery of Qatar’s As Salwa Border Crossing dated 07JUN17 / Right: 05JUN17 As the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and the rest of the GCC states unfolds, food, among other commodities, could be in short supply if some agreement isn’t reached soon. Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Egypt suspended their…
December 1, 2016
This article was last updated on February 10, 2017. Earlier this year, we examined attacks on Yemen’s water infrastructure by several parties to the conflict. An attack in January 2016 on the water desalination plant (Wikimapia) north of Al-Mocha was central to that open source survey. Earlier this month, new reports emerged that the water desalination…
April 21, 2016
Sudan probably received additional Su-24 Fencer aircraft from Belarus, recently acquired satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe suggests. Back in 2013, it was reported that Sudan would acquire 12 Soviet-era Su-24 Fencer aircraft from Belarusian BelTechExport. The aircraft, previously flown by the Belarusian Air force, were decommissioned from the cash-strapped air arm not long before. We’ve been…
February 5, 2016
By Brendan Clifford* and Christiaan Triebert** The conflict in Yemen has caused immense suffering, exacerbating the longstanding water crisis in the country. For nearly a year, Yemen’s water infrastructure appears to have been under deliberate attack. This open source intelligence (OSINT) investigation looks into the latest attack (allegedly January 8, 2016) on a water facility,…
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),…
August 1, 2015
The latest space snapshots of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s northern border region show additional construction activity to support the presence of its troops. With the current conflict in Iraq and Syria, Saudi Arabia has had no choice but to rush equipment and supplies to defend the border area. Imagery from January and June 2015…
June 15, 2015
The latest satellite imagery acquired by DigitalGlobe of Saudi Arabia’s northern border region shows the Kingdom bolstering the deployment of its troops with some substantial firepower. With conflict in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, everyone’s on edge in the Middle East. And none more so than the Saudis. Space snapshots from November and December 2014 of Turaif shows…
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