A Guide To Monitoring Conflict Amidst a Sea of Misinformation

This Bellingcat guide outlines open-source techniques to verify and analyze weapons, militant affiliations, and alleged drone-delivered munitions in Manipur, India, amid internet shutdowns and misinformation. Using reverse image searches, video analysis (InVID), and references such as Small Arms Survey and iTrace’s public dashboard, the authors identify rifles (e.g., FAL pattern), improvised arms, and a likely 60mm commando mortar, and attribute imagery to groups via insignia, language, and cultural symbols. The report catalogs looting and surrenders from police armories, notes extensive weapon customization and improvised explosives, and scrutinizes claims of weaponized drone attacks, finding limited visual evidence consistent with drone-delivered munitions. It emphasizes methodological rigor, source cross-checking, and the challenges of tracing weapon origins in a contested information environment.