As Iranian drones target the UAE, Bellingcat reveals a number of instances where authorities downplayed damage and mischaracterised interceptions. Meanwhile the UAE’s attorney general warned that publication of images or videos of strikes is illegal. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/04...

Starting in less than one hour: A live chat with @foeke.bsky.social , the researcher behind a recent Bellingcat investigation into wildlife trafficking on Facebook. We’ll discuss how coded language enabled the trade of protected species in plain sight. Join us here: discord.gg/VjQq4VhH?eve...

Today on @indicator.media’s podcast: The awesome and inimitable @koltai.bsky.social of @bellingcat.com!! Please, allow me a fanboy thread.

Not one, but two waves of bombings appear to have struck the area of an elementary school in Minab, Iran. Local media reports 175 people were killed, mostly children. In this video we explain how we analysed footage of the attack on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran. youtu.be/yy9pzWul4mA

Bellingcat and Josimar Football identified the representative of an Asian bookmaker who used a false name to sign a sponsorship deal with Croatia’s national football team ahead of the FIFA World Cup. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/04...

Bellingcat, with @frontlinepbs.bsky.social, @washingtonpost.com and @evidentmedia.org, investigate the impact of the Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme, through on-the-ground access and open source analysis. 👇

Bellingcat found 31 posts with AI-generated imagery shared on social media by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam and West Bengal in December that appeared to meet the United Nations’ definition of hate speech. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

What work goes into tracking the traffickers? Join us live on Thursday at 11am EDT/5pm CEST as we speak to @foeke.bsky.social , the Bellingcat researcher behind this investigation into the illegal wildlife trade on Facebook. Ask your questions by joining the event here: discord.gg/VjQq4VhH?eve...

Videos of explosions have fueled misunderstanding and misinformation in the conflict with Iran, with munition types incorrectly identified amongst claims of “mystery” weapons. What can types of explosions really tell us? Read @easybakeovensz.bsky.social‘s latest: www.bellingcat.com/resources/20...

Bellingcat’s analysis of new footage from the Feb. 28 Minab school strike reveals that the area was hit by at least two separate waves of bombing. Read about our findings here: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Two new videos have emerged showing the deadly strikes that hit an IRGC compound, as well as an adjacent girls’ school, in Minab, Iran. By geolocating and verifying the footage, Bellingcat found two waves of attacks, occurring hours apart. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

The US appears to have deployed the Gator Scatterable Mine system over Kafari, a village near Shiraz, in southern Iran overnight. At least two people were killed according to local reports. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Satellite images from March 24 show the aftermath of a drone strike on the Primorsk Oil Terminal, a key Russian oil export facility. Smoke plumes extended over 100 km from the site, located near the Finnish border, which was hit by Ukraine in the night of March 22–23.

Tyson Fury’s former advisor and a one-time boxing promoter, Daniel Kinahan, leads one of the world’s largest organised crime groups. Learn how he infiltrated the sport... Watch the full film on our YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj0G... In short: youtube.com/shorts/oMlsR...

A Bellingcat and @mongabay.com investigation has identified nine Facebook groups, in which coded language has helped illegal wildlife dealers evade bans on the platform for years. Facebook says it prohibits any form of animal trading on its platform. youtube.com/shorts/uwQNZ...

Bellingcat has now geolocated the photos of munition remnants to the northwest of the Bir Tine neighbourhood in Chad, just 650 metres to the border of the Western Darfur region of Sudan that is largely controlled by the Rapid Support Forces. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

How are the leaders of the Kinahan cartel, known for drug trafficking, arms smuggling and violence in Europe, linked to Hezbollah and the Iranian state? Watch the full documentary with Search Party on our YouTube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj0G... Find out in short: youtube.com/shorts/xb5ZF...

Munition remnants from a strike that killed 17 people in Tiné, Chad, on Wednesday, appear to match a model previously used by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the war with Sudanese government forces – despite RSF denials of involvement in the incident.

Bellingcat and @thetimes.com revealed that two of the world’s most wanted men were visible at a live-streamed MMA event in Dubai. Now, Search Party digs into the Kinahan cartel and their US-sanctioned leaders. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj0G...

Wildlife traffickers selling protected animals on Facebook use coded language to evade moderation. Research by Bellingcat and @mongabay.com has identified nine groups, with more than 70,000 members combined, leading back to six profiles and one broker in Indonesia. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Bellingcat and our partners at @evidentmedia.org and @calmatters.org have tracked US Border Patrol agents, analysing over 85 hours of footage taken across the country to try and unpack the circumstances around multiple use-of-force incidents. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

A Pakistani airstrike on a drug rehabilitation centre on March 16 in Kabul killed at least 400 people and injured 250 others, according to Afghan officials. But online accounts claim that the strike targeted military infrastructure. Here's what open sources can tell us...

Urlscan lets you analyse suspicious websites without directly interacting with them. You can also use the tool to look into signals that potentially connect individual sites to coordinated networks. Learn more in @bellingcat.com's Online Investigation Toolkit: bellingcat.gitbook.io/toolkit/more...

Records uncovered by Bellingcat & @thetimes.com link MMA fighter and Kinahan ‘friend’ Mounir Lazzez to multimillion shipping deals, orchestrated by companies in a secrecy jurisdiction, for oil tankers later sanctioned by the US for helping the Iranian regime. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

How do investigators identify weapons used in war? @easybakeovensz.bsky.social explains the techniques used to analyse munitions and verify their use in combat, including weapons emerging in the conflict involving Iran. Type 'Stage Talks with Bellingcat' on podcast platforms: rss.com/podcasts/bel...

In 30 minutes, Bellingcat researcher @easybakeovensz.bsky.social — one of the investigators behind this work — will be speaking with our community about how to identify weapons being used in the conflict involving Iran, the US, and Israel. Join us live for a Q&A: discord.gg/V45bwzmq?eve...

De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest newspaper, recently published an interview with a woman promoting €1,600 seats on private evacuation flights from Dubai. Bellingcat found that her image was likely AI-generated, and flight data suggests no such plane took off. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

We asked the US Department of Defense if the US had an agreement to use Iraqi or Syrian airspace for cruise missiles targeting a third country. They told Bellingcat they “had nothing to provide". Find out more about our investigation 'Tracing Tomahawks' here: youtube.com/shorts/X_Yhz...

We'll be going live in 15 minutes, join us here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1gY...

Bellingcat has geolocated eight videos showing US Tomahawks cruise missiles in Iraq heading towards Iran. The missiles appear to be flying low across valleys and were most likely fired from the Mediterranean sea, an expert told us. www.bellingcat.com/news/middle-...

Young boys dubbed “lion cubs” in Sudan’s civil war are going viral on TikTok and Facebook. Videos of children celebrating battlefield victories have millions of views. Our investigation analyses the clips and how the content encourages young people to join the war. Watch here: youtu.be/i8wf-hJAjR4

Have you solved the latest Bellingcat Challenge yet? Tomorrow, March 11, Bellingcat researcher Peter Barth will try to solve them live at 5pm CEST/12pm EDT on our YouTube channel. GeoPeter, who designed the latest Challenge will join the stream as well! www.youtube.com/channel/UCFl...

Images published by Iranian state media show remnants of a US Tomahawk missile at a girls’ school in Minab. It’s not possible to independently verify the provenance of the remnants from this imagery alone. But Bellingcat previously detailed how a Tomahawk missile hit a structure next to the school.

Israeli Air Force images posted on March 3 show a bomb not previously seen in Israeli service, reportedly from jets involved in strikes on Iran. Experts say the bombs appear to have an incendiary component and may be meant to destroy chemical or biological agents. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Read our analysis of the video showing a US Tomahawk missile strike next to Girls’ School in Iran on February 28 here: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

New video footage shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an IRGC facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing for the first time that the US struck the area. The footage also shows smoke already rising from the vicinity of the girls’ school, where 175 people were reportedly killed, including children.

Two of the world's most wanted men, Daniel and Christy Kinahan, were photographed at an MMA event, Bellingcat and @thetimes.com found — their most recent sighting since the US issued multi-million dollar bounties. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Here's what Bellingcat has been up to this week: Bellingcat analysed imagery and reporting from the first days of the conflict with Iran to identify US, Israeli and Iranian munitions now being deployed. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Satellite images from NASA Worldview on March 5 reveal the extent of the blackout in Cuba. A failure at the most important power plant, combined with the US blockade on fuel shipments in the country has left nearly 70% of the island's inhabitants without power.

A March 3 explosion at the location of the now sunken Russian LNG tanker Arctic MetaGaz in the Mediterranean Sea was captured in mid-infrared optical imagery from the geostationary Meteosat-12 satellite. Visualisation: @simonsat.bsky.social/ESA. Data: EUMETSAT

Trying to make sense of an aircraft’s movements during a conflict? Context is everything. That’s why we built Turnstone, an open source tool that searches historical flight data to allow researchers to explore flight patterns over time and in specific locations. www.bellingcat.com/resources/20...

A satellite imagery analysis conducted by Bellingcat shows that at least 15 police stations or police-related buildings were targeted in strikes conducted in Tehran between March 1 and March 3. www.bellingcat.com/news/middle-...

Israel used 2,000+ bombs in the first 30 hours of the Iran war; the US struck 1,000+ targets in the first 24 hours. Iran responded with at least 390 missiles and 830 drones in the first two days. Bellingcat has tracked the munitions used by all sides so far: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Planet SkySat imagery today shows smoke rising from Shahid Bahonar port in Iran and a vessel on fire. The vessel alight has a visible launch pad similar to Kordestan and Makran in the analysis below and matches features seen in Google Earth imagery of Makran in Jan. 2024 . bsky.app/profile/cove...

Amidst the current strikes on Iran – and the Iranian response across the Gulf – revisit this analysis into the impact of the June 2025 Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear sites. With @frontlinepbs.bsky.social @washingtonpost.com @evidentmedia.org www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/12...

Your holiday photos on Instagram might reveal more than you intended. In the latest Bellingcat Open Source Challenge GeoPeter shares photos from his recent travels, it’s up to you to figure out where he stayed and how he made the journey. Challenge.bellingcat.com

The US and Israel launched strikes across Iran this morning. Iran has responded by firing ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, and US bases in the region. Civilians have already been killed or injured in multiple countries, caught in the crossfire.

Pakistan bombed Kabul overnight, as well as two other provinces, as tensions rose with Afghanistan’s Taliban government. Planet SkySat imagery obtained by Bellingcat shows the aftermath of the strikes on a military base in Kabul.

Breaking news doesn’t start on TV. It starts online. From disasters to conflict zones, open-source monitoring uncovers events as they unfold. Hear how open source researcher @aramshabanian.bsky.social does it in this week’s Stage Talk: rss.com/podcasts/bel...

Child soldiers of Sudan’s civil war go viral on TikTok A @bellingcat.com investigation found that the platform is being used to turn young fighters into online personalities celebrated as ‘lion cubs’ Free to read🔓 www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...