Thread by @wammezz

A new video posted by @rudaw reveals new information on a possible weapon and firing location that killed nine Iraqi tourists in a tourist resort, north of Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan. A small #OSINT thread with some findings 🧵1/
rudaw.net/english/kurdis…

First, one of the shots shows a wide-area view of this area where in the last years new Turkish/KRG military bases were set-up in the fight against the PKK, also featured in @SimonaFoltyn excellent piece for @NewsHour pbs.org/newshour/show/… h/t @obretix 2/ for geolocation

Then a first time image of a munition remnant, showing the fin of a mortar, identified by @CalibreObscura as a possible Turkish MKE MOD 214 81mm mortar. More images are needed to be sure. But was it there already or recently fired? That's unclear 3/x
urunler.mke.gov.tr/Urunler/81-mm-…

Oddly, seems like some rope is tied around this piece of metal/rock in front of the tail fin. Was it an older piece placed there, an IED? Lots of known unknowns. But we have at least some certainty its a 81mm mortar round visible. We now need to know where it's coming from: 4/x

The video shows a zoom-out from the mortar where it landed, which we can use to geolocate this image. Using both Google Earth Pro and Peakvisor, we find a pretty good match at this location 5/x satellites.pro/Iraq_map#37.27…

So where could this mortar potentially be coming from? There are a range of Turkish bases on the border and inside the KRG build in the last few years, which lead to outcry of local communities cause of the massive forest clearance, show in our 2021 @PAXforpeace overview 6/x

But there are military positions (in blue) at the border where Turkey has 155mm artillery placed (inside KRG is red). The Iraqi gov claims they have remnants of 155mm rounds, that was fired from a distance of 7-8km from the tourist spot. Let's check: 7/x
facebook.com/Tacticiq/posts…

There are a couple of Turkish bases within the 7-8km range. We pulled up the latest MAXAR high-resolution satellite imagery of three bases on June 29, 2022 but could not spot any artillery nor any artillery set-up on those dates. Also, unlikely positions as its remote uphill 8/x

There are however 155mm M114 and T-155 artillery positions visible on sat images at the TR border, roughly 8 and 10km away from strike site h/t @obretix. Maybe at other locations too be we don't have recent sat images of that, so that remains a possibility. Back to the 81mm 9/x

In this panorama view of the 81mm mortar the angle indicates the munition likely came from the north. There we have one Turkish military outpost that has direct sight at the village and the area where mortar round can be seen. 10/x

So in sum, what can we learn from #OSINT? We can see that there is an possible Turkish 81mm mortar in the video. Was this fired on the day? We can't be certain. There is a Turkish base within firing range (5800m for 81mm round) so that's a possibility at least 11/x

We also learned that Iraq claims a 155mm artillery round was responsible, and we can see there is are least two TR bases with 155mm artillery in shooting range, and that 3 nearby bases don't seem to have 155mm 12/x.

In sum, different facts are being claimed: Turkey says its a PKK attack, Iraq states its 155mm artillery, and footage shows 81mm mortar.
A transparent and robust investigation is needed to hold the perpetrators accountable and provide remedies to victims news.un.org/en/story/2022/…

PS: According to Turkish-weapon expert @kemal_115 is more likely that the M-114 155mm are to be M101 or M116 howitzers. Noted and thanks for the feedback!