You're listening to a stage talk titled Identifying
Munitions in the War with Iran. This week, Bellingcat
seasoned weapons expert Trevor Ball joined us
on stage. He spoke about the many resources you
can use to help verify weapon parts seen in imagery
from a conflict and the mistakes many make when
attempting this type of identification. He also
shared insights from his reporting on the war
between Israel, the US, and Iran so far, and
answered community members' questions on how
they could responsibly cover it. You can find
links to all the resources mentioned in the talk
in the podcast description. This talk was hosted
by me, Charlotte Moll, on Thursday the 12th of
March, 2026, in the Belencap Discord server.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or is it a low -cost
unmanned combat attack system, or LUCAS, for
short? Drones, missiles and bombs are flying
and dropping out to the sky across the Gulf states
and the Levant. But how, as a researcher or journalist,
do you know what is up there or falling down
here? Well, hopefully today we can answer that.
Bellingcat's Trevor Ball joins us. Trevor is
a US Army veteran and a guru on munitions use
and has been sharing that expertise in this very
server for years. Right now his focus is on the
unfolding conflict in Iran and the surrounding
regions working daily to identify what weaponry
is being used and where. Today he's here to answer
your questions but first let's unpack what he's
found so far from identifying who is likely to
blame for a strike to the use of never seen before
armoury. We'll also try to cover times when people
got it wrong, misidentifying remnants and debris
is something else and why this misidentification
can happen. Before I pass over to him though,
a short reminder that you can place your questions
in the chat over on the right hand corner of
your screen, but please remember that this is
being audio recorded for the podcast. So if you
don't want me to mention your username, please
add that as a note in your question. Okay. Trevor,
the stage is yours. All right. Thank you, Charlie.
So I'm just going to get started talking about
some of the stuff we've seen so far. The most
important thing to know is like while there have
been new weapons seen in this war, some for the
first time, it's been their first known use in
combat. A lot of these are weapons that have
been used for decades. They're very common. A
lot of countries use them. I think it was last
week, we just did an article kind of summarizing
some of the weapons we saw in the first few days,
whether they're posted online on social media
or posted by the various countries involved,
either the US, Israel, or some of the Gulf countries
were posting remnants. One of the most common
ones we've seen is just the Mark 80 style bombs.
It's kind of the most standard bomb used. by
Western countries and Israel. You can attach
a bunch of different bomb guidance kits to them.
This is actually a picture of the 500 pound Mark
82 with a JDAM kit on the left. On the right,
you have the Bunker Buster version of the 2000
pound bomb. And that was the blue 109. Also just
with a different JDAM kit. This is a bomb that
the U .S. has. It's a glide bomb called the JSAL.
That's one that we've seen quite a lot of them
loading. This is one of the weapons that the
U .S. used for the very first time. It's called
a Precision Strike Missile. It's a newer version
of the Atacums that you might have heard a lot
about being used in Ukraine. The U .S. gave quite
a few, some that were originally made in the
1990s. One of the most important things about
identifying weapons is Anytime there's remnants
people will often claim that it's something it's
not either because of ignorance or because they're
trying to Basically claim that a another party
was responsible for a strike In this article,
we mentioned some of the earliest claims we saw
such as a big one that happens in almost every
conflict is that people will claim that a drop
pod from an aircraft is a missile or bomb. Essentially
aircraft will have external fuel tanks that get
mounted to them. And when they don't need them
anymore, they just jettison them from the aircraft
and they fall to the ground. And then people
go, oh, that's a bomb. So this specific example
of these, uh, the photo on the left and the photo
on the top right, or of a Israeli fuel tank.
Um, one of the photos in the post shows a close
-up of the marking, but It got claimed as a Israeli
bomb and then this Iranian missile booster on
the bottom right got claimed that it was also
an Israeli missile when it's Iranian instead.
So one of the things is just being able to identify
these weapons or know where to look can help
you kind of make sense of what's actually going
on versus what posts might be claiming. Here's
another one that was a Israeli missile booster.
that was reportedly found in Iraq. That's another
important thing to note that like Iran is not
the only country firing missile boosters or firing
missiles with boosters. So not everything that
falls to the ground is Iranian. You have drop
tanks, you have Israeli missiles, they're using
boosters. You have all these interceptor missiles
being fired that fall to the ground either after
they miss or after they intercept. Here's a piece
of a israeli era 2 interceptor And then you also
have remnants of weapons that failed to get to
their target I've seen four or five now Remnants
of tomahawk missiles that reportedly failed to
get to their target in either rock or syria And
this is one of the most common pieces you'll
see is the warhead because it's a lot denser
so the missile will hit something and then the
warhead will just keep going and stop usually
a bit away from where the rest of the remnants
end up so one thing i like to do when i'm looking
at a weapon i've been looking at them for a while
now so like a lot of them i kind of have an idea
of what they are if i don't know already but
the osm -p has been documenting this war already
they have a collection page for the current war,
where all the weapon remnants they've found and
they've verified with at least two different
experts they've posted here. And these show that,
hey, these are associated with the war, this
is what we're seeing so far. So this is a really
good place to look immediately. Very quick, very
easy. But also if you don't see it here, you
can go back to previous conflicts the parties
have been involved with, as... Like I said, while
a few of these weapons are being used for the
first time, like this Lucas drone right here,
which is the US B of the Shahed with some improvements,
a lot of them have been used for decades and
especially in the 12 -day war. So they also have
a election page for the 12 -day war from June
2025, where you can see the remnants and weapon
debris they verified from that conflict. So you're
going to see a lot of the same ones. and a lot
of these weapons, while there might not be as
many photos of from the current war yet, you
can go out and use this as a reference. So here's
some remnants of a GBU -39 bomb, the unexploded
warhead specifically, but these bombs are being
used in the current war as well. Here's the Israeli
Mikulet they use a lot from their drones. So
this has also been spotted in the current war,
but it's just an extra thing to go look at. and
see what these countries have been using in the
past. It can help you easier identify stuff.
And there's a lot of good weapon debris on the
OSMP from the Yemen 2025 strikes that the US
conducted. See, here's the same blue 109s with
JDAM kits. Here's the same 500 -pound bombs that
we featured in our story from this current war,
the first three days that the US released photos
of. And while I haven't seen pictures of the
AGM 88 harm series yet, it's notable that they
use these in Venezuela as well. So if you see
something and it's not immediately in the collection
page or in a recent article, it's worth going
back and looking at past wars where these countries
were involved and see if you see anything that
matches that way. because even if these musicians
haven't appeared yet, there's a good chance they
might be being used and it just hasn't filtered
onto social media. There's really not that much
coming out on social media from Iran outside
of what state media is posting. And it's also
very important to note that claims that state
media will make or identifications they will
make when they release photos aren't always accurate.
They released a few photos claiming, hey, this
is a downed drone, when in reality it was just
a U .S. missile that crashed or blew up and they
just got parts of it. Or you'll have them saying,
hey, this is a U .S. drone when it's Israeli
or something like that. And a couple of the other
sources I really like, aside from the open source
munitions portal. this is more of like more niche
and more if you're trying to get some very good
information or do more of like just a general
visual search is i really like odin it's maintained
by the us army training and doctrine command
so essentially they just let you filter by different
countries and different tracks so you can go
to like iran you can be like all right um let's
see what drones you have And this is all publicly
available information. So a lot of this just
derived from like news reporting, but it's a
very good and quick way to go get an idea of
how to better, like a good starting point for
what you're looking for. Like for example, the
Hadid tent 110, these just got announced publicly
by Iran last year, but there's already been photos
of them being used in conflict. One of the militia
groups backed by Iran and Iraq just released
photos and video of them launching them, which
was the first time they were known to have them.
I believe it was the Kuwait Ministry of Defense
released photos that showed wreckage of one.
So if you don't see it on the OSMP, there's another
very good starting point to see if you can find
any matches and then kind of try to do more of
a deeper dive for starting from there. One source
that I really like and recommend is called Bullet
Picker. All Bullet Picker is, is they have gathered
publicly available documents from government
resources and like some demining organizations
and they've hosted it here. So they have the
raw documents in the library, but they also have
an ordinance section where you can go and see
ordinance and All of the information here is
pulled directly from these government documents
and it's linked to them. So anything here, you
can go and see exactly where they're getting
this information from. So they're pulling it
from this technical manual from the US. They're
pulling it from these manuals from the US. They
might not have as much information, but the information
they do have is very reliable. It's specifically
what government sources have said, and they have
a lot of drawings from the government that give
you exact measurements. Sometimes it's not as
helpful for the much newer stuff, but when it
comes to some of the stuff that's been used for
decades, like here's the blue 109, you're going
to get some very good, very reliable information.
And then, one more thing that's been a hot topic
is the Tomahawk missile. Bellingcat was the first
to identify that a Tomahawk missile struck near
the Manib school. Iranian media released a photo
or the video saying, hey, this is the missile
that struck the school. We were able to show
that, yes, that missile struck in the area, but
that missile did not directly hit the school.
When that missile impacted, smoke was rising
in the vicinity of the school. That's a good
indicator that that wasn't the first missile
that had struck. Fatal eye imagery shows a bunch
of buildings had been directly hit. We were basically
able to identify that missile as a Tomahawk.
One of the main things about that is that Iranian
missiles do not have an internal rocket motor
like the Tomahawk does. This is a tomahawk missile
the current model since 2004 has been the block
four with a block five and If you look at the
bottom, you don't have any protrusion here and
you just have a small opening Where it takes
air to feed the engine because the engine is
internal Ford of the fence where if you look
at Iranian missiles, they all have a engine that's
underneath so their engine is all external depending
on the specific variant some of these will have
the engine internal like the KH -55 and then
once it's fired that missile deploys from inside
and it stays outside as the missile travels the
Iranian derived versions the engine just stays
attached to the bottom the whole time it doesn't
deploy from internally So that's a very good
visual difference that you can see. Where you
don't have that protruded engine on the bottom.
In the example that hit Manab school and you
don't have that on a Tomahawk missile. If this
was an Iranian missile you would see that big
protrusion that starts at the fins and continues
forward of the fins. So that's one of the most
clearest examples that helps you Indicate that
hey, this wasn't an Iranian cruise missile Another
thing we did is that we actually tracked a bunch
of tomahawks We geolocated I think total 10 total
imagery of tomahawks Related to the war we found
a bunch in Iraq traveling a kind of circular
path where they seemingly went southeast of Kirkuk
and then they're following one of two valleys
down near the Iranian border, Iran -Iraq border,
before going into Iran to hit targets. And based
on some experts we talked to and kind of their
known range of these missiles, it's most likely
they are fired from the Mediterranean. So it
looks like they flew over Syria, over Iraq, and
then into Iran before they hit targets. One thing
to note is that Tomahawk missiles, they follow
terrain guidance. So they have a GPS guidance,
but they also are taking pictures of the terrain
and referencing that to onboard memory to kind
of help determine where they are. So more prevalent
terrain features like valleys and mountains help
them better determine where they're at accurately.
And it helps hide them from being detected by
radar or shot down from air defenses. So another
claim we saw lately was that the missile that
hit near Manab came from a less direct path from
where the carrier group in the Arabian Sea was
operating. But these missiles, by the most basic
Navy information that they probably say are designed
to fly at low speeds, they're designed to take
evasive routes. As we've seen tracking these
tomahawks and as the military has specifically
stated they're designed They don't have to take
direct routes They often will take indirect routes
to be harder to detect and take advantage of
the terrain for guidance and to protect them
from being detected by air defenses and going
back to one thing about the new weapons is that
Especially related to tomahawks. We've seen some
new stuff that wasn't publicly known before so
One modification that has appeared is it looks
like they're tomahawks, but that the wings are
facing forward instead of back. Obviously, this
wasn't known to be a modification before, but
a lot of analysts, including the Warzone, have
suggested that this is a modification made to
make them harder to be detected by radar. Another
thing that was seen was a all -black missile.
All Black Tomahawk, which is believed to be a
stealth coding, which also wasn't publicly known
before. So, you know, sometimes there is new
things. So you might not actually find an exact
copy and you know, the open source munitions
portal or Odin or bullet picker, but try to find
what's similar and try to see like, Hey, what
similar changes have been made because that Black
Tomahawk is new, but other weapons have a similar
stealth coding which makes people think this
is also intended to be a stealth coding. And
then of a more weirder one that's still a puzzle
is Israel released a some photos of what fits
the same form and shape of a standard Mark 84
2000 pound bomb but this one has red bands and
it's not known specifically if this is it but
this color scheme matches what's known as a US
crash pad. It's a bomb designed to destroy chemical
and biological agents. And it does that by having
a small amount of explosives, but a large amount
of white phosphorus. So we reached out to the
IDF for comment. They refused to comment about
what specific munition it was or give us any
details, but a couple weapons experts we talked
to basically said, hey, you know, like this indicates
an incendiary bomb. These are the markings they
use for it. We just can't say specifically what
its purpose is, but it does bear a striking resemblance
to the crash pad. That's a known bomb that has
these markings that looks this way. But we still
don't know exactly what it is or how they're
being used. And that's all I have. Or I could
just keep rambling because I've gone about weapons
for way too long. I know, I know, and I really
appreciate it. But let's go to some questions.
One of the main questions, and I think we should
address it to start with, because we've been
asked this constantly the last few weeks, is
how do you know what governments have which weapons?
Obviously, Trump went out and said that lots
of different countries have Tomahawks, and we've
explicitly said it's a US Tomahawk. So how do
we know what governments have access to and what
they don't? A simple question, but with perhaps
a complex answer. Well, it sort of depends on
which countries you're looking at because some
countries are much more open about the weapons
they supply and how they do it. The US is typically
a lot more open about their weapons transfers,
major arm sales, unless they're classified, get
published by the US government. You know, there
was some recent reporting that the U .S. authorized
the sale of, you know, I think it was about a
total of a little over 10 ,000 more bombs to
Israel. And they, you know, gave specific models.
So you have some stuff like that, or you'll have
media reporting. There's the Stockholm Institute
of Peace has a arms transfer database where they
basically collate that. And you can go back and
see what publicly reported weapons have gone
where. So, you know, like with the crash pad,
there's no, this incendiary bomb, there's no
evidence we could find publicly of Israel getting
that bomb by the US. So we specifically asked
the state department, hey, did, was this ever
transferred? You know, they declined to comment,
but that's always one thing to ask is just because
it's not public doesn't mean it didn't happen.
But you can make a reasonable effort to try to
see if there's any evidence of that, whether,
you know, publicly disclosed transfers or, you
know, reporting. I think Reuters did a good one
on some transfers that weren't publicly disclosed.
When it comes to other stuff, sometimes governments
will basically post what weapons they're seizing.
An important one is the US has posted images
of a lot of weapons they've seized going to the
Houthis in Yemen. They have been shipped by Iran.
So sometimes you'll see new stuff pop up there.
It's one of those things that Just because a
country hasn't been reported with it before doesn't
mean they can't have something now. So there's
always a element of uncertainty, but there are
some things you can do to try to see if it has
been known to have it before. Yeah, thanks for
that. Doesn't unfortunately stop Trump making
sweeping statements, however. We've had some
questions about the incendiary bomb. article
that you've got currently up right now. So I
thought I'd ask that at the minute. If I recall
correctly, white phosphorus munitions are restricted
under the Geneva conventions and related protocols.
Yet there have been reports that Israel has continued
using these types of weapons. What does international
law actually say about the use of white phosphorus
and would such use violate these conventions?
So we actually spoke to two different legal experts
specifically about the use of an incendiary bomb
and the crash pad even more specifically. And
they essentially said that neither Israel or
Iran are a party to the specific subsection that
would make the use of incendiary weapons illegal.
And that the US basically did sign it, but they
signed it with reservations where they basically
said, we will still use these if we deem it is
necessary and in accordance with principles.
There's one main thing about a crash pass The
intent is to destroy chemical and biological
agents by the high heat Instead of you bombing
a chemical biological weapon storage area and
dispersing those chemical and biological agents
So that's at least the intent behind the crash
pad. It's very hard to say Exactly what Israel
is using this bomb for or what the intent is
An incendiary weapon can mean a bunch of things.
It could mean that it is a crash pad. It could
mean that they just have a much smaller incendiary
effect. So without knowing more that just gets
into a bunch more speculation. If you want to
read specifically what the two experts told us
about the legality, it's an article about this.
There's also some links in here that give even
more details about like the US reservations.
We've got a bunch of questions coming into the
chat now, but before we get to them, I wondered
if we could just take a step back. If I gave
you, if I found a low resolution video of a missile
in flight, what are the first physical features
you as an analyst are looking for? What would
be your first port of call if you found a video
online that... was claiming to be a specific
missile and you wanted to fact check that or
verify it. So my thing is, is first off always
to look at the video quality first because one
common thing is the US strikes in the Caribbean.
They've keep releasing videos of that, but most
of the time the munitions are moving so fast.
That's just a blur. And that's on high quality
video. Some of these videos that people are taking
are very low quality. So that The quality specifically
is going to greatly affect what you can confidently
say about it. But generally, I always look for
the general shape and the size. It's going to
vary how specific or confident you can get depending
on the quality. But I want to know roughly how
big is it? And what are the main characteristics
I can see? Do I see wings? Because that's a big
one. If you see wings, then you're looking more
like a missile or a glide bomb. If it just looks
like a cylindrical object, you know, without
any wings, then maybe you're looking more just
a more typical bomb. And the size can help you
kind of get a general ballpark to look at. But
again, it's going to significantly vary where
you can go for more general based on the quality.
But it's very important to know that objects
moving fast, especially with, depending on the
video, it might blur certain features and it
might elongate the object. So, you know, some
of those strikes in the Caribbean have been reported
to be very small bombs. They're just a couple
of feet long. And then, you know, I've seen some
people say, oh, that's a tomahawk, which is like
20 feet long. So that's just an important thing
to realize. Pay attention to munitions sizes
and things like that. And also look for comparable
imagery as well. In terms of If you don't have,
if that video isn't clear enough, what other
corresponding imagery could help? For example,
it's me Ian in the chat has asked, can you use
photos of damage to identify munitions? Is it
even possible to tell a difference? For example,
looking at the crater that a bomb might have
left. Yeah. So you can use photos and damage
to identify munitions, but kind of similar to
the quality. and what you have specifically you
might be able to get in the ballpark or you might
be able to identify a specific munition because
some munitions have very distinct effects. One
of the Israeli versions of the Mikulet bomb that
they use from drones as cubic fragmentation lining
the warhead so when that specific version of
the Mikulet is used you see a lot of those very
kind of like consistent fragmentation pattern
in all directions, which can be a very good clue,
and you have a very small hole of anything. So
like when it comes to something like that, especially
if it's in an area where only like, like in Gaza,
where Israel is the only one operating drones
and conducting airstrikes, then it's a lot easier
to be more confident in that answer. But when
you're looking at something like Ukraine, where
there's an absolute ton of weapons being used,
there's new stuff being developed, You have random
soldiers on the front lines just kind of putting
together drone munitions in haphazard ways using
whatever they can find. That's going to be a
lot more difficult to find out specifically what
it was without a more forensic style investigation
where you actually are collecting, you know,
samples of explosive residue, collecting every
single fragment you can find and actually seeing
what you have. When it comes to craters, One
thing is in a lot of reporting you might see
people saying hey, this was like a 2 ,000 pound
bomb or equivalent Essentially, they're just
saying the damage is consistent with that explosive
Those are the most kind of like common and standard
weapons, but other weapons might have similar
warhead strengths So another thing to note is
like a 2 ,000 pound bomb That doesn't mean it
has 2 ,000 pounds of explosives. That's the general
weight for it almost every time you hear 2 ,000
pound 100 pound 1 ,000 pounds 500 that's the
general weight of the warhead or the bomb the
explosive is a lot less than that um typically
it's like 40 to 50 percent if even less so the
the 2 ,000 pound mark 84 bomb for example has
about 980 pounds of explosives but if you're
looking at the blue 109 2000 pound bunker buster
bomb it has even less than that I think it's
more like 500 pounds. So that's an important
thing to note, but people often use those, the
Mark 80 series, like the 2000 pound, the 1000
pound is a good reference because they're used
so often. And there's a good bit of data about
roughly the crater sizes that they produce. So
the crater sizes can also vary based on how the
soil there, the type of fusing that it is. because
these bombs can be equipped to explode in different
ways. They can explode in the air for air burst,
they can explode on contact with hitting a building
or the ground, or even if it's not a bunker buster,
it might be intended to explode after a short
delay on contact where it penetrates the ground
a little bit. And all of those are going to increase
or decrease the kind of contact with the ground
and can make the crater larger or smaller. So
that's basically just a roundabout way of saying
it really depends. And without like, you know,
a forensic or remnants of the weapon that you
can verify came from the site, you're only going
to be able to get within a certain ballpark generally.
Yeah, which was the case when we looked at a
possible crater in a hostile blasting Gaza, we
could only really suggest that it slightly ruled
out some of the larger bombs because of the size
of it, which I put the link of in the chat for
those live listening. In terms of debris and
remnants left behind, how reliable is that? If
you find an image shed after the attack, how
reliable can you take that information? For example,
the case of the girls school in Iran, we analyzed
an image that was shared by Iranian authorities
with debris and remnants on the table that were
found in that particular area or was said to
be found in that particular area. So what can
you take from this kind of imagery and what should
you avoid doing? And have you seen cases where
governments deliberately mislabeled debris to
shape the narrative around a strike? So the important
thing is when was the debris found and can you
find it in the immediate aftermath? And does
the debris Does the weapon the debris is showing
make sense for the strike? Those are the two
things like octas look at. You know, with this,
we don't know when this photo was taken. It was
released, you know, almost two weeks after the
strike occurred. And you can very clearly see
that most of the debris has been cleared. It
looks much different than videos taken in the
immediate aftermath. So it's very hard to say
where this debris came from. You know, one thing
in Gaza, particularly you'll have a lot of journalists
or media influencers running into where airstrikes
happen. So you'll be seeing, you know, uh, the
people that were just killed by this airstrike
and you might catch like, uh, glimpses of the
remnants on the ground, or you might have someone
picking someone up like while they're still pulling
bodies out. and that makes you be a lot more
confident to say like, hey, this remnant was
associated with the strike because you can see
it in the immediate aftermath. Whereas something
like this, you know, we can't independently pie
these remnants to this specific strike. We know
that a tomahawk hit one of the other buildings
nearby, but we can't specifically say that these
remnants are from this building. So like that's
important thing to acknowledge and try to assess
what you can say about where the remnants came
from and what's possible We can't say these are
Tomahawk missile remnants We mash them up with
previous remnants The New York Times did a very
good piece where they tied some of the specific
numbers that were visible in the photos To contracts
for the Tomahawk missile from Ball Aerospace
So like that's another good thing to say hey,
this is a Tomahawk missile Now the next question
is does it make sense? Does the weapon they're
purporting to show remnants of does that fit
the strike, you know? Did it do that this damage
is it way too small? Is there anything fishy
about that? That's always a common thing That
says even if you can see that aftermath. It's
like if you're trying to tell me like a small
60 millimeter mortar took down this whole building.
I would say absolutely not. I don't believe you
for a second But, you know, Tomahawks have 300
-pound warheads of explosives. They can destroy
significant amount of structures. So, like, this
kind of fits. We know that another Tomahawk hit
nearby. We just can't say where these remnants
came from specifically. Debris and remnant analysis
becoming easier or harder as weapons are becoming
more modular or stealth oriented. Are you finding
it more difficult to identify key parts of missiles?
Not really. If anything, it sort of helps because
in the most simplistic terms, the more complex
munition is, the more parts you will have that
might survive the explosion and be identifiable.
So if you look at a Mark 84 bomb, it is, or let's
just use this blue 109 example. The whole green
part is the bomb body. So that is just steel
filled with explosives. And then the grayish
parts are the parts of the bomb guidance kit
that gets attached onto it. So when that bomb
explodes, you're going to find fragments of the
bomb body, but that's a lot harder to identify.
especially if you're just looking at photos,
but the guidance kits have a lot of components
that are farther away from the bomb, from the
explosives. So those are more likely to survive
and be in a recognizable form. And also they
might get sheared off on impact. You know, if
this bomb hits a building and it's on a delayed
fusing, the bomb might penetrate a floor or two
before exploding, but the JDAM kit might get
ripped off when it first hits the roof. So, you
know, that gives a much better chance of that
remnant surviving. And missiles are just a much
more complex version of that, especially Tomahawks.
So, you know, like one example here is that this
blue piece right here is part of the engine.
And if you look at photos of Tomahawks, that's
about as far back from the actual warhead as
you can get. So all of those extra pieces in
these like complex missiles that are very large
with all these guidance kits and all these wings,
it just gives you Extra remnants that have a
better chance of surviving intact that you might
be able to identify And the u .s. Specifically
has a lot of different subcontractors and they
have a lot of different um codes that they'll
put on the missile and stuff that you can usually
use via open sources to find What weapons it's
associated with? for example, uh the hellfire
missile and the the newer kind of similar version
the jagum they Lockheed Martin reports that they
have over 270 suppliers in the US supplying parts
for that missile. And you know, the Hellfire
is a lot less complex than something like a Tomahawk
missile. So to keep it short, the less sophisticated
munitions are usually the ones that are harder
to get a conclusive ID on when you're just looking
at it from photos. That's really useful to know.
And for those listening back to the podcast,
you can find the link to these images that Trevor's
just been talking about in the podcast description.
Zara's just asked a follow -up to that. How might
we go about identifying those specific pieces?
Will reverse image search help us to find the
open sources that tell us about these individual
pieces? So I haven't actually tried reverse image
searching these ones just because I used to work
at Ares on the open source munitions portal.
So I was working there during the US strikes
in Yemen. So I've spent a lot of time looking
at Tomahawk missile parts, especially like relatively
recently, even before this war. So I was like,
okay, this is a Tomahawk missile. So I just went
and like double checked, make sure I wasn't missing
anything. But for stuff like remnants, my first
place would be the open source munitions portal.
You can either go generally, but If you're more
getting new into this, I would just go to one
of the war collection pages. So look, they've
already added the ones from the school. All right,
they haven't added any ones from that. But if
we go to Yemen, there's some from here. So here
is some of the same parts from Tabahag missiles
that were fired in Yemen. Here's the same loader
component. So that's the first place I would
go. It's very easy to kind of clue in and help
you know if you're on the right track. And then
what the New York Times did is this fragment
at the top right that actually has a visible
contract code and they looked up the contract
and found that it was associated with a contract
that started delivering this component in 2014
for Tomahawk missiles. Since then a video has
come out of these same components, but it shows
them in more detail So you can even get more
information about the actual markings on it So
it really just depends on what components you
have the quality of the imagery Because if you
didn't have that little gray data plate visible,
then it would be a bit harder to try to find
it Just based off markings Sometimes they'll
have what's called a cage code, which is a five
digit code And that indicates the contractor
that made that component. So Raytheon's cage
code is 15090. You can actually go to this website,
cagedla .mil, and you can search the specific
cage codes. So you search it, boom, that's Raytheon.
And then it gives you details like this. So if
you see something like that, the Raytheon cage
code that you know Raytheon, made that component.
But like I said earlier with, you know, the Hellfire
example, multiple companies will work on these
missiles and components. So if you see multiple
different cage codes, that doesn't mean that,
you know, it's like different munitions. That
just means that multiple contractors made parts
for that. But like that's another good indicator
is There's what's called the prime contractors
and they're the ones that are responsible overall
for the weapon that got the contract. So, Tomahawk
Missiles, Raytheon is the prime contractor. But,
you know, Ball Aerospace is a subcontractor that
made that GPS component that the New York Times
looked at. So, there's kind of differences there,
but that can also help key you in. You know,
if someone's saying, hey, this is this certain
weapon and there's a cage code on it and the
cage code comes back to, you know, Lockheed Martin
and they're saying it's a tomahawk. Well, does
Lockheed Martin have anything to do with that?
That's always like a good thing that can help
you kind of like start looking. And there, there's
a lot of good reporting about cage codes and
some of the other markings, um, especially from,
uh, the previous human strikes, uh, you know,
like a decade ago, Bellingcat did some good stuff
with, um, the paveway bomb guidance kits that
were being supplied. It was even found via cage
code that an Italian company was making some
of the bombs that were being used. Super useful.
And I've just linked that site in the chat and
I'll make sure it's included in the podcast description
as well. Only about 20 minutes left. So if you
have questions, keep them coming in. We've got
a few to get through. I wanted to ask quickly
though, as we're talking about identification,
in terms of new variants of familiar weapons.
What kind of visual differences might indicate,
what are the most common visual differences that
might indicate something as a familiar weapon,
but a new variant? How do you kind of spot that?
So generally it's a lot harder. Cause you know,
you might say you have like a Hellfire missile
is a great example. People will just say a hellfire,
but there are an absolute ton of variants of
the hellfire with a bunch of different changes
It's been in use for decades So, you know, you'll
have different small differences into the rocket
motor to give it a little bit of extra range
or like the actual components and you also have
different warheads, so When someone says a hellfire
or like a small diameter bomb like a gbu -39
It's important to realize that usually those
are more general terms and there's a bunch of
different versions within that. So trying to
find out usually like what is a new variant is
going to be very difficult unless it's very specific.
You know like the Hellfire R9X like Ninja missile
that's a very good example because that's a very
distinctly different modification that wasn't
known before and there's no prior information
about that. So it's very clearly like, it's pretty
easy to say, yes, this is new. This is different.
And you have a marking on that. Some of the debris
when that came out specifically says Hellfire
on or R9X on it. So you can say, Hey, this is
new. Or like the, the Tomahawk, apparent Tomahawk
missile with like the four swept wings. Like
that is a very obvious, visibly different missile.
But a lot of the times it's not going to be very
easy to determine without a lot of work or like
very good quality photos or maybe even like several
different examples of remnants. Good to know.
Jake Golden, our colleague, has also written
in the chat a useful point. It's also useful
to know what you can find out via numbers on
non -US munitions like Russian cruise missiles.
ConflictArmentResearch did a good field investigation
on the KH101 here and he's linked to a story
map. So I will make sure that that's also featured
in the description of the podcast. A few questions
here in general about the conflict with Iran.
I'm not sure how much you know about this Trevor,
but perhaps we can kind of address it. Someone's
asked, because of the widespread internet shutdown,
what methods can OSINT researchers use to identify
and obtain reliable sources or information from
inside the country? And another person's asked
if you can talk a little bit more about the ways
some of the missiles and drones are being intercepted
in the region. Are you able to talk to that?
Yeah, so as far as the kind of like OSINT methods
we can use to obtain and reliable sources of
information. I think the Manab school video showing
the tomahawk is a good example because that was
released by Iranian state media amidst an internet
shutdown. So it's important to assess what these
videos are showing and how you can verify them.
The specific video was released saying that it
showed the school being struck specifically.
We were able to show that no the school isn't
being struck specifically in that video but it
is of the same area and that there's doesn't
appear to be any AI tampering, it appears to
be legitimate. There is damage in the area where
the missile hit. So that's one good way of just
taking in information that you're finding with
a critical lens and seeing what you can actually
say about it. The other good one is satellite
imagery. There's been Some satellite services
are delaying publications, but some still doing
it but even then that's a great way to verify
what's happening because Iran is releasing what
they want just like Israel and the DOD is releasing
video they want showing strikes. So, you know,
like they've said they the US said they carried
out over 5 ,000 strikes now, but the image the
videos and images they really showing those strikes
is substantially less than 5 ,000, you know,
so it's It's important to kind of keep in context
in your frame of mind what you're actually seeing
in comparison to how big this scale is. We're
seeing a very small proportion of everything
that's happening. So I'd say just verifying what
you can and acknowledging what you can't say
or how limited your view is. But I'd say satellite
imagery is probably like one of the best things
we can use right now just because you can get
the best view on what's happening at a more general
level. Um, as far as the interceptions go, so
there's a lot of different systems being used.
Um, so the iron dome and some of the other systems
are more designed to take out like drones and
smaller rockets, but then you have ballistic
missile defenses, you know, like the U S thad,
the, um, the Patriot. So some of these work by
you're essentially firing a missile and that
missile explodes and tries to blow up. You know
the drone or the rocket like that's how the iron
dome works a lot of the ballistic missile defenses
um, like the the patriots and um the fad and
the arrow They work by what's called hit to kill
where they're trying to hit the incoming Missile
directly and that's how they destroy it by the
kinetic impact You can see some of the remnants
of those, as you mentioned earlier, falling as
well into across the regions as they try to defend
some horrific imagery coming out across the region.
A question that we had at the very beginning
of the talk, which I think kind of fits now.
is with the rapid rise of AI -generated content
and deepfakes, what steps should OSINT investigators
take to verify that the information they are
analyzing is authentic rather than AI -generated
or manipulated? You mentioned just then the fact
that we do see manipulated and recycled imagery
actually as well in any conflict. So how do you
avoid being tricked by AI, for example? I mean,
I think the best example when it comes to like
munition remnants as a first image search, all
the AI stuff I've seen like claiming to specifically
be weapons or like remnants has been pretty bad
so far. But, you know, there is always like people
trying to reuse debris. There is a very popular
example that didn't make it into our article,
but someone was reusing a video from Ukraine.
saying it was a drone that hit Cyprus and Russia
was supplying Iran with their version of the
Shahed. So that was a very important thing that
people fact checked and were able to say like,
no, this wasn't. And as far as I know, I still
haven't seen the original video, but a photo
from that video of the remnant matched an article
from 2024, which is how people were able to identify,
hey, this is reused. So like, My biggest thing
would be, you know, extreme claims. I would definitely
be a lot more cautious of, and, you know, would
want to spend a lot more time looking into to
validate that it's actually real, you know, and
also looking at the source of where it's coming
from. Like, Hey, um, why is this, uh, for example,
like I saw it being shared by Ukraine account,
like pro -Ukraine accounts saying, Hey, this
is a Shahed and Cyprus. Well. Where did this
come from? Is this actually being posted by media
in Cyprus? Where are you claiming you got it
from? And this kind of goes back to one of my
biggest beefs with the current information space
around open source is that a lot of people don't
cite their sources, which makes everyone have
to waste a lot of time trying to verify where
this information is from. If everyone cited their
sources, then you could very quickly find out
who's spreading this information. or better evaluate
how reliable the sources. Always link your sources
guys in here and on other social platforms, please.
In terms of our latest report in which you showed
it in your talk where we had mapped out tomahawks
flying over Iraqi airspace, possibly Syria and
also how did we kind of get an estimate about
the actual missiles, the number of missiles flying
over. How can you distinguish between multiple
missiles versus kind of the same missile captured
from different angles or in different clips?
Is it possible to get an accurate estimate of
how many you might be seeing in a given area?
So we went with the most conservative estimate
if we could more reliably be confident in the
exact times that the videos were filmed then
we could Better assess that but we weren't able
to be confident enough that the video showed
different or unique waves So what we did was
is we just went with the minimum tally we could
in each area. So just in these seven or eight
videos alone The total tally was something like
70 missiles spotted. But since we couldn't determine
for sure if they showed different waves at different
times or what, we just went with the number of
tomahawks we could identify in a single video,
which one video showed 20. We just went with
at least 20 tomahawks. And then we had a crash
one here, which if it crashes in Syria, it won't
be able to be flying in Iraq. So we counted 21
here. in Iraq and Syria. And then we counted
one in Manab and then 13 flew over. We passed
a ship a few days later. So our total count we
went with was 35 at least. And we counted six
over Tehran, but again, we couldn't determine
for sure that it wasn't six of the ones we saw
over here. So we went with the most conservative
count we could just because we couldn't reliably
determine anything more specific than that. And
you can see the specific locations in that interactive
map made by our brilliant colleague Logan Williams
as well, if you click into the link. Cyber has
put in the chat, I think the open source information
would be reduced by about 80 % once you remove
copied plagiarized content and only leave genuine
original content. Somebody else has just asked,
do we know whether any of these munitions incorporate
GPS guidance or tracking systems? If so, is it
possible to identify the manufacturers or vendors
and determine technical details such as the frequencies
of communication bands those systems might use?
I don't know if you can determine the frequency
or communication bands. That's outside my knowledge.
But you can see who makes the GPS systems and
stuff like that. There's another great remnant
that shows one from a JASM missile, and it also
shows that the GPS system, at least in part,
is made by Ball Aerospace. Sorry, my tabs are
a mess, but yeah, right here. JASM slash GPS
antenna, so Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation,
and then there's their CAGE code. So you have
13993, and that's something you could plug into
CAGE .dll .mil. And then here's the contract
number, here's the part number. Those are all
good things you can look up. Say if you had a
similar remnant that the ball thing was obscured,
you could get a good idea who made it with all
that other information. We've been asked if you
could link that in the chat. It's amazing what
detail remains after explosions. Hey, really
useful. Oh, I see Jake's already done it. Thank
you, Jake. Amazing. We're coming close to time
actually. A couple of people in the chat have
said that they could listen to you speak for
hours. But I wanted to just start to wrap up
the talk a little, talking about how, for example,
if someone's listening and they want to kind
of really become an expert in this space, what
kind of skill sets do you need to become a specialist
in munitions analysis? What kind of things do
you need to train on? To get where you are, Trevor.
Um, I would say one thing is just, um, look a
lot, like look at the OSMP try to find out if
you're unsure how they're getting to an answer,
try to find out why. But at the most basic level,
I would say it helps a lot if you can kind of
get a, even a basic understanding of what types
of weapons are delivered by what systems. So,
you know. Some are like like the tomahawk is
fired by ships Some bombs are dropped by aircraft
and then you have like artillery so if you kind
of look into that and understand like what makes
a rocket or a missile versus a bomb and how those
are delivered there's kind of a logic to weapons
and the more you can understand that kind of
like the faster you can find the right line of
inquiry to follow and just I've heard some people
say that like geolocations are vibes based sometimes
munitions can be the same way when you get started
where you can look at something and just be like
this kind of feels like this and you know you
can kind of just use that as a starting point
and see if you can find something that actually
reinforces that vibe you'd be like this kind
of looks like more sophisticated more complex
like maybe it's a missile this country operates
there like maybe i can start looking at that
way whereas oh you know this looks very cheap
it has um Maybe not as good construction. Maybe
that's you know, like an Iranian drone that they're
firing or supplying to their the militia groups
they support so There's kind of a lot of just
time you have to spend learning the basic logic
of how these weapons work. They're all bound
by you know Scientific constraints so all of
them kind of do some of the same things to achieve
desired weapons effects To maximize like range
versus what they can carry So there was kind
of a weird logic you can kind of learn and you
can just kind of get used to what certain types
of components look like. Jake has said in the
chat, when looking at Russian munitions in Ukraine,
it was very useful personally to collect and
follow every source where images of munitions
were showing up, such as Ukrainian emergency
service pages for each oblast or even the police
prosecutor's offices for the oblast. They tended
to show ammunition remnants to show damage from
attacks on civilians infrastructure and whatnot.
And that was useful for finding more imagery
to compare slash analyze. Just to finish, Trevor,
as we're coming to time, what's been your kind
of proudest moment as an analyst? What kind of
detail did you spot that others didn't, that
led to an identification or something surprising
that you found? Honestly, I'd say probably one
of my proudest would be Al Maghazi. There was
a strike in April, 2024 that hit on a street
where a bunch of children were playing foosball,
and killed a bunch of children and two men. And
Israel denied operating in the area, or carrying
out a strike in the area, and there were some
remnants. And I didn't have good reference imagery
of the remnants at the time, so I went to geoconfirmed
and I looked through every single airstrike that
they had geolocated, and I marked out the ones
that were too big of an explosion for the munition
that was used. And the ones that fit, I spent
more time digging into each of those strikes
to try to find remnants. And I was able to basically
match components from those strikes to Mikulet.
And those components matched the one at Almagazi.
So I basically was able to determine, hey, this
matched an Israeli Mikulet, even after saying
that they didn't carry out a strike in that area.
And it was really time consuming because it was
earlier into the conflict and I hadn't spent
a lot of time. learning about that munition or
like saving a bunch of reference images didn't
have as much, but I think that was probably the
practice for me. Wow. Yeah. Important work. If
you have a link to that, please pop it in the
chat. And thank you so, so much for going, going
into detail about your process and also how other
and the resources that you use and how other
people can make use of them too. Really, really
useful talk, especially at the moment as everyone's
got their eyes on the conflict. in the Middle
East. And yeah, we'll be back in two weeks time
with another Stage Talk. But for now, thank you
very much, Trevor. I can't wait to see what you
put out next. And thank you everybody for listening.
Yeah, thanks everyone for showing up. Have a
good one. Thank you for listening to the Stage
Talk. If you'd like to catch a Stage Talk live...
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