Chapter 2.4: Remote Scrutiny: How Online Information Can Help to Investigate Airstrikes

Numerous countries have conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, resulting in civilian deaths in these countries, as well as the devastation of communities and infrastructure. However, important details about such strikes are often a blind spot for the international community. While there are significant obstacles to conducting on-the-ground investigations at the site of the strikes, online open source research offers possibilities for relatively safe, low-cost and high-impact ways to establish important facts about airstrikes and their ramifications, and can help to bring accountability to violations of international norms. After presenting information on recent airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, this chapter outlines general approaches for conducting open source investigations into airstrikes, and then details how these have been applied in two case studies to reveal the facts about the US bombing of a Syrian mosque and the Russian bombing of a Syrian hospital.