Munitions In Misurata: a virtual investigation by @acarvin's Twitter followers
When an unusual munition landed in the Libyan city of Misurata, a group of volunteers on Twitter took on the task of identifying exactly what kind of weapon it was. Here's a timeline of what happened.
- On Friday, May 6, photographer Ali Alramli and other members of the 17 Of February Media Center documented a number of munitions that had fallen on the city of Misurata, Libya. At least one of them exploded, damaging a white van.
- They also uploaded a video of the scene from youtube, and then a group of volunteers added English subtitles:
مصراتة ازلة الالغام التي زرعتها طائرات مروحية تابعة لمعمر الارهابي في الميناء تحمل شعار الصليب الاحمر 06 05 2011 with Engelska subtitles | Universal SubtitlesThis is the arm...do you know anything about these mines? This is an anti-personnel aerial mine The way it is delivered...you can see the parachute It explodes at the slightest movement You can see the tripod, it fell this way on the asphalt on its side It should root itself in the ground endangering any passing cars or people We heard a plane at 9pm yesterday We saw it and left it alone because we couldn't deal with it at night, it wasn't something we were familiar with Then at 6am we came ...The initial speculation of people on the scene was that it was some form of mine, and some in Misurata even reported they were possibly dropped by helicopter:
- Details and evidence are emerging. Our source has interviews with
witnesses and video of the damage, which will be furnished ASAP (this is
a reliable source we have used repeatedly). Yesterday, helicopters
were flying over the port of Misrata, guards became alerted so they
investigated what was happening and furthermore they contacted NATO to
confirm they were OK. NATO told them they were Red Cross helicopters and
were told to hold any fire. Helicopters entered harbor without
permission but guards were told they could not be fired upon. Shortly
thereafter, the helicopters released explosives which are currently
being described as "land mines" being dropped from the helicopter into
the harbor in an apparent effort to damage the port. - Meanwhile, on the ground in Misurata, Pulitzer-prize winning foreign correspondent CJ Chivers was investigating the situation, working with his own sources to identify exactly what type of munition this was:
@Libya_is_One Story is not up yet. Still working. ID almost solid. Need a little more time. Again, as with the MAT-120, it's an exotic.While CJ went about his work, I issued a challenge to my Twitter followers to see if we could figure out what the munition was just by doing our own research and pooling our collective knowledge, using the hashtag #IDthis so we could all track the conversation:
OK, military geeks, new assignment: we need to ID what this is. Some claims it's a mine. Is it? flic.kr/p/9F8yAA #IDthis
@acarvin It's an aerial dispersal mine, fired out of a pod slung under a jet aircraft or helicopter. Some hav… (cont) deck.ly/~hTcC2
Anonymous Watcher: "@acarvin It's an aerial di…" « Deck.ly@acarvin It's an aerial dispersal mine, fired out of a pod slung under a jet aircraft or helicopter. Some have ...
looks like an anti-tank submunition RT @acarvin: OK, military geeks, new assignment: we need to ID what thi… (cont) deck.ly/~wgPQ7
@acarvin very like a fragmentation grenade bit.ly/jjf9oj more generally bit.ly/mhFDS3 note handle, form factor
@BristleKRS @acarvin I've not seen one that looks like that since Yugoslav Wars of Dissolution, but looks like a 'smart' mine- Smart how? RT @cultauthor: I've not seen one that looks like that since Yugoslav Wars of Dissolution, but looks like a 'smart' mine
