Terrorist Organizations: OSINT #24 Sofia Santos Write-up
Welcome to my OSINT write-up everyone, today I will be going over Sofia Santos’ OSINT Exercise #024. Here is the brief:
There are countless armed insurgent groups spread throughout the globe. The three images below depict individuals associated with internationally recognised terrorist organisations.Your task is to identify to which group they have pledged their allegiance.
Photo 1
There are three individuals in photo 1, with each of them carrying their own weapon. Red and black colors stand out and appear to be a defining characteristic of the group. Their uniforms consist of military gear, red and black bandanas that cover their faces, a circular patch sewn onto their shirt with other red and black cloth adorning their uniform. The only notable graphic is that the letter “N” is present on the cloth wrapped around one of the individual’s arms.
Google reverse image search yielded successful results. The individuals in the group are associated with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) .
The images above show members of the ELN. As we can see there are exact matches between the clothing the individuals in photo 1 were wearing to the uniform that members of the ELN use. Ranging from the bandana covering the face, to the circular patch and the arm cloth with the large adorned ELN initials are common characteristics of the uniforms from this group.
Answer: The individuals in photo 1 belong to the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) also known as the National Liberation Army in English.
Photo 2
Photo 2 consists of a woman wearing what looks like a jacket with a zipper. The jacket-like piece of clothing only goes up to her forearms and contains thin white grids layered over a light camouflage pattern. She has a weapon strapped to her back and a round red star pin adorning her equipment.
Googling ‘terrorist flag with star’ led me to a Terrorist Groups website, listing out different international terrorist organizations. From that point I was able to identify a flag that matched the pin: The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). According to Wikipedia, this party is considered a terrorist organization, so it seems like we are on the right path.
To find the exact group that the woman in the photo belonged to I had to look further into the PKK’s allegiances, as none of the uniforms that members of the PKK were wearing matched with the source photo. Due to the fact that the person in the source picture is a woman, the allegiance that stood out the most was YJA-STAR, known as the Free Women’s Units in English.
Matches of other women wearing the same uniform were found from other members of YJA-STAR through Google images.
In the pictures above, it can be seen that other members of YJA-STAR share the same uniform as the source image. The light camouflage color, the sleeve folded up to their forearms, the zippers and the white grid layered over the camouflage.
Answer: The individual in photo 2 belongs to the YJA-STAR known as the Free Women’s Units in English.
Photo 3
Photo 3 looks like some type of training video. It contains individuals wearing camouflage pants and t-shirts, knee and forearm bracers, light colored shoes, cloth covering their faces and heads, and gloves.
They are in a dry and rocky environment, the main man-made marker that can be seen in the background is a flag. The flag appears to be in black and white, with a white triangle covering half of it, in the middle of the triangle there seems to be some writing or a drawing.
Googling ‘terrorist flag with white triangle’ yielded results. It appears that the individuals in the group belong to Jaish ul-Adl (Army of Justice) group.
Jaish ul-Adl flag
When looking up Jaish ul-Adl on Google images I came across individuals wearing similar clothing as the ones in photo 3.
Through reverse image search on Yandex, a BBC article about Jaish ul-Adl showed up, which contained more pictures of the individuals in photo 3.
From the two pictures above we can see that the flags associated with the terrorist group match. The individuals on the two pictures above are wearing the same clothing as the ones in photo 3. It can be seen in the picture with the members standing in front of the flag, that they are wearing camouflage pants and t-shirts, bracers for their knees and forearms, coverings in their faces and heads, and are wearing gloves.
In the picture from BBC where the members are doing push-ups in a circle, we can also see that they are wearing the same light colored shoes seen in photo 3.
Answer: The individuals in photo 3 belong to Jaish ul-Adl (Army of Justice).
Summary:
a) Photo 1 -> Ejército de Liberación Nacional
b) Photo 2 -> YJA-STAR
c) Photo 3 -> Jaish ul-Adl
I hope you enjoyed this, until next time. Peace and love.
