Open source intelligence, in my opinion (of course it's my opinion, it's my blog), is one of the best and most under utilized of the intelligence collection functions. OSINT as it is known in the intelligence community, is the process of collecting information from publicly available resources such as newspapers, magazines, the internet, etc.
The other "int's" (SIGINT, HUMINT, etc) often receive far more attention in training and in the field despite the vast amount of data that can be gleamed from open source. All too often commanders, executive officers, and S2's (myself included) demand intelligence collection and analysis be done using the other "int's" as well as the government's secure internet server when a couple hours on 'Google' may give the same, if not better, results.
The Army devotes entire MOS's and weeks long courses to the other intelligence functions but very little focus is given to OSINT; perhaps one class of a couple of hours duration at best. More time and effort should be spent teaching the value and resources that can be used of open source.
I bring this all up because at the moment I'm remembering a situation 1-14 Cav faced this last deployment in which OSINT assisted in helping.
We had a rather problematic JRTN cell (or cells, I'll probably never know) that liked to hit our Strykers with command wire and victim initiated IEDs on the main route from Jalula to Qara Tapa. B Troop rectified the problem initially by detaining two of the key individuals we believed were responsible for the attacks and Special Forces rounded up a third. This helped for a few months but unfortunately two of the detained men were eventually released and IEDs became a problem again a couple of months after their release.
The B Troop commander, always looking for a fight, was not too upset by the attacks because they never caused any damage or injury with the exception of the occasional busted tire or mild concussion. He began his own little information operations (IO) campaign in an attempt to cause the JRTN cell to make a mistake and get themselves caught. Whenever one of the local leaders in the area commented on the attacks, Bronco 6 would mention that he was glad the IEDs were hitting his vehicles as opposed to the police, Iraqi Army, or civilians because if the IEDs went off on Strykers, no damage would be caused and no one would get hurt. It was his way of saying to the insurgents "keep it up dirtbags, you suck at it anyway."
I fully understand, as did the B troop commander, that we were getting hit because we had established patterns on that particular route. It was the quickest road from FOB Cobra to two of the combined checkpoints that were manned by B troop. The insurgents knew that we would use that road often and consistently. All they had to do was wait for a convoy of Strykers to go by, knowing that in a couple of hours those same Strykers (or the Strykers those Strykers were replacing) would come right back down that road. I made a large assumption that the individuals who planted the IED were likely still in the area filming the attack because that's what JRTN did for both propaganda purposes and for proof of the attack to get paid.
But where were those individuals hiding?
The answer would come late in the deployment from a weekly product created by an organization not affliated with my brigade. The product was a rollup of the messages, videos, and propaganda posted on the internet by the different insurgent organizations operating in Iraq. I found myself on the contact list for this product when I discovered a friend of mine, who had gotten out of the Army, was in theatre working as a contractor and I noticed her name at the beginning of an email chain. She in turn sent me this product weekly which happened to be made by a guy I went to the career course with...another under utilized intel tool, networking, remember, it's a small Army.
Back to the point...on one of the products was a link to a website that showed an attack against an American Army vehicle somewhere in Diyala Province. The website was a JRTN site and since my squadron was the only one with a JRTN problem so I figured this had to be one of our attacks. The site even mentioned which cell conducted the attack, 2nd platoon / 2nd company / 101st brigade (JRTN names its cells in a military manner). I passed off the link to B troop who then went out to the site and based off the video were able to determine exactly where it was filmed from.
Thanks to open source and the internet, we now knew the location of where insurgents were filming the attacks as well as confirmed our suspicions that JRTN was the organization behind the attacks (previous beliefs that JRTN was behind the attacks were just guesses, very good guesses but guesses nonetheless). This video made my week and what was really great was I was able to thank the individual who sent me the product in person when the squadron was redeploying and I spent several days on the base where this product was produced.
Unfortunately we were unable to catch those responsible for the attacks in the short time we had left, but we did pass this info off to 2-14 Cav and when you can give a replacing unit hard evidence and proof of the operations of an insurgent organization that's always a good thing. The only thing that really frustrates me about the entire situation was that I had to get this open source product from an outside organization and not from my brigade. I don't expect Brigade to have an open source section, but they should be tapped in to the organizations that do and be passing on that information.
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