On July 15, 2021, one girl, three boys, a doctor, an engineer, and a bunch of other civilians get killed in an Afghan airstrike. The reconnaissance plane coordinating bombing w. AAF fighter jets spotted & IDed as a Pilatus PC-12
Our #swissarms story out, a quick #OSINT thread
Video analysis shows a range of bombing videos tweeted by @ro_modafghan. Crosshair & other details such as the flying speed, verified via MGRS calculator (legallandconverter.com/p50.html) corroborate type of reconnaissance plane used.
Pic: MOD boasting w PC12 plane (2)
Mainly Google/Twitter/FB dorks w. Persian translation helped the team. It verified early images of a missing plane, when a Taliban Badri 313 "Special Forces" soldier is IDed on other footage (3)
Helpful dorking cheatsheet here: gbhackers.com/latest-google-…
Satellite data: imgs helped to confirm evacuated PC-12 planes via fingerprinting (length & wingspan).
Via #GoogleEarthPro measured & verified via high-res sat imgs by @planet imgs allowed finding missing plane (4)
Check my post on sat images here:
towardsdatascience.com/how-to-use-ope…
To confirm Pilatus PC-12s planes were "active" in battle, satellite images revealed movements on afghan airbases. How proud AAF was shows imgs from Jul 27, a period when AAF flew many attacks from Balkh, spotted a ready PC-12 when Defense ex-min BismellahGen visited Balkh (5)
Flight tracking was semi-helpful, as most of the AAF Pilatus recon planes turned off their responders.
Though, some did reveal track, s.a PC-12 N349wg,
Data from @ADSBexchange revealed. Also, late 2021, one AAF PC-12 (N419NX) spotted over Abu Dhabi… (6)
To confirm civilian casualties, we villagers confirm who was killed. We checked with a source (@MaihanSarwary who lives in Canada, a Taliban regime critic) who lost his cousins, two brothers in the village, saying one a Doc, had a medicine shop. thx also to @AfghaniWitness (7)
Seldomly have I experienced such a thrill and sorrow for the victims in an investigation: RTS sent a photographer to the bombed village relying on #OSINT intel we gathered upfront. Later sneaked into the PC12 Kabul Hangar... a totally new approach to OSINT conflict journalism (8)
Thanks to the whole PC-12-investigations team which I had the honor heading, great fun with the great @leone_hadavi @boasruh @flatterhaft, @pscllbssr, AndreasSchmid,CécileTran-Tien, @Zard8 , @SRFinvestigativ, @LHreports crew, @bellingcat folks & others, so many great people 💟
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