H WEAPON OF MASS DETECTION H INSIDE THE ONE-MAN INTELLIGENCE UNIT THAT EXPOSED THE ATROCITIES OF SYRIA’S WAR BY BIANCA BOSKER THERE WAS SOMETHING strange that he was determined to reveal Syrian President about the rockets that landed on to the world the “real picture” of Bashar Zamalka, a town south of Syria’s life in Syria, he used a handheld al-Assad is pictured in capital, just after two in the morn- Sony camera to capture a short large banner, in Damascus, ing on Aug. 21. They didn’t ex- video of its twisted remains. That Syria, in plode. Yet even lodged into walls same day, he uploaded his clip to December of homes or injected into the a site that has become an intelli- 2011. dirt fully intact, they proved le- gence hub for war-watchers and a thal. Hundreds of people sleeping time-killing venue for bored teen- near the landing sites were killed agers: He sent it to YouTube. instantly and bloodlessly, as if Several hours later and 2,300 choked by invisible hands. A cloud miles to the northwest in Leices- of death spread quietly, ending ter, England, a shaggy-haired blog- hundreds of other lives. ger named Eliot Higgins peered Just after dawn the follow- at his laptop and clicked play on ing day, Muhammed al-Jazaeri, al-Jazaeri’s video. It was one of a 27-year-old engineer who had scores Higgins turned up that day joined a coalition of activists as he trawled Twitter, Google+ and fighting to take down the regime the more than 600 Syrian You- of President Bashar al-Assad, felt Tube accounts he monitors daily. an urge to document what had oc- From his living room, Higgins was curred. He found one of the rock- racing to solve the same whodunit ets protruding from a patch of or- confronting world leaders amid ange dirt behind a mosque a mile claims that Assad had unleashed MUZAFFAR SALMAN/AP PHOTO SALMAN/AP MUZAFFAR from his home. Recalling later chemical weapons against rebel sympathizers in the suburbs of Damascus. Was Zamalka a victim of such an attack? If so, who was WEAPON OF HUFFINGTON MASS DETECTION 12.15.13 responsible for the deed? source of information on the weap- Eliot Higgins, right, is On paper, Higgins — a 34-year- ons used in Syria’s deadly war. interviewed old with a 2-year-old daughter Using nothing more sophisticated by Channel 4 News’ Paraic — brought no credentials for the than an Asus laptop, he had uncov- O’Brien in job. He had no formal intelligence ered evidence of weapons imported March 2013. training or security clearance that into Syria from Iran. He had been gave him access to classified docu- the first person to identify widely- ments. He could not speak or read banned cluster bombs deployed Arabic. He had never set foot in by Syrian forces. By The New York the Middle East, unless you count Times’ own admission, his findings the time he changed planes in had offered a key tip that helped Dubai en route to Manila, or his the newspaper prove that Saudi trip to visit his in-laws in Turkey. Arabia had funneled arms to oppo- Yet in the 18 months since Hig- sition fighters in Syria. gins had begun blogging about His work unraveling the mys- Syria, his barebones site, Brown tery of the rocket strikes of Aug. ELLIOT HIGGINS ELLIOT Moses, had become the foremost 21 played a key role in bringing much of the world to the conclu- sion that it was indeed a chemical weapons attack, one unleashed by WEAPON OF HUFFINGTON MASS DETECTION 12.15.13 Assad’s forces. That conclusion analysts have honed a novel set led to a diplomatic deal under of sleuthing skills that fuse old- which the Syrian government sub- fashioned detective work with mitted to international inspec- new sources of intelligence gener- tions and pledged to destroy its ated by cell phone cameras and stocks of chemical weapons. spread by social networks. Syria’s “I saw the U.N. got the Nobel war, widely considered the most Prize for Syria,” says one weap- documented conflict in history, has ons expert, referring to the Unit- turned social media into a weapon ed Nations-backed Organization of mass detection — critical both for the Prohibition of Chemi- for fighters on the ground and for BY THE NEW YORK TIMES’ OWN ADMISSION, HIS FINDINGS HAD OFFERED A KEY TIP THAT HELPED THE NEWSPAPER PROVE THAT SAUDI ARABIA HAD FUNNELED ARMS TO OPPOSITION FIGHTERS IN SYRIA. cal Weapons, who declined to faraway observers trying to make be named on account of his own sense of the conflict. work with the international body. “All parties to the conflict in “I think Eliot has done a lot more Syria realize that social media is for Syria than the U.N.” an important front in this war,” Higgins belongs to an obsessive says Peter Bouckaert, an expert in coterie of self-appointed military humanitarian crises and the emer- intelligence experts who use social gencies director for Human Rights media to piece together critical Watch. “There is a war for the details of faraway conflicts, often truth as much as for territory.” well ahead of seasoned profession- Many government agencies, als. Frequently self-taught and private research groups and news- operating far outside the military- rooms are still wary of analyses industrial complex, these amateur based on the Facebook status updates or viral videos of Syria’s opposition groups. Such “open source intelligence” — so-called WEAPON OF HUFFINGTON MASS DETECTION 12.15.13 by the U.S. military — is deeply the Carnegie Middle East Center. This file image biased and difficult to verify, its “All that takes time and continu- provided by critics say, often amounting to ous follow up. “ Shaam News Network meaningless chatter. But in an age in which social on Aug. 22, 2013, “I personally don’t really have media produces seemingly limitless purports to the time to go through the so- streams of information, some peo- show dead bodies after cial media in Syria so as to start ple are proving obsessive enough to an attack knowing which sources, which go rooting through it all in search on Ghouta, Syria. sites, which media, which indi- of small nuggets of undiscovered viduals are credible or not,” said reality. People like Higgins. S HAAM NEWS NETWORK, FILE/AP PHOTO FILE/AP NETWORK, S HAAM NEWS Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at After a temporary job review- ing orders at a ladies’ lingerie maker came to an end in Febru- ary, he dispensed with looking for WEAPON OF HUFFINGTON MASS DETECTION 12.15.13 another so that he could devote gins describes himself as an avid himself to blogging full-time. His gardener and budding cook, but wife admits she does not read his his core passions have always blog and yearns for a time that he centered on a fascination with will return to “a real job.” But as screens: During his schooling Higgins sees it, he is consumed years, he engaged in marathon with the realest job of all, sifting sessions playing video games and through a digital goldmine dis- argued ceaselessly on Internet fo- dained by those who lack the pa- rums. These two pursuits trumped tience for the work. his attention to schoolwork, filling “If you’re in intelligence and his report cards with Cs. you want to know what your en- Throughout his life, Higgins emies are armed with, just watch has taken hobbies to illogical their YouTube channels and see extremes. After his brother in- what weapons they’re waving troduced him to the iconoclastic around,” he advises. “You’ll find rockstar Frank Zappa, Higgins out all sorts of information — and rushed out to buy all of his four- not necessarily the stuff they in- dozen albums. As a video gamer, tend to show you.” Higgins pressed well past casual bouts of World of Warcraft, stay- HIGGINS OPERATES from his ing up late to lead teams of 40 command center in a narrow, players in complex online raids. two-story home just down the Even now, he feels compelled street from a Salvation Army and to systematically beat each new a community center, in a town video game before he can start about 100 miles north of London. another, in this fashion gradually His “office” alternates between making his way through strategy a cream leather couch in the liv- and role-playing games like Fall- ing room and an Ikea chair with a out, Baldur’s Gate, Total War: lap desk in an upstairs bedroom. Rome II and Command and Con- His standard uniform is jeans and quer. Before getting married, he white T-shirts layered with dark- was known to game for 36 hours colored V-necks. at a stretch. Born in 1979 to a Royal Air “It’s like he’s got tunnel vi- Force engineer and a caterer, Hig- sion,” says Higgins’ brother, Ross. “He latches onto something and gets kind of obsessed about it. Most people don’t think like my WEAPON OF HUFFINGTON MASS DETECTION 12.15.13 brother does.” Yet in his off hours, Higgins A Syrian youth stands After dropping out of university morphed into “Brown Moses,” a next to a midway through a media studies fastidious online commenter who rebel waving a pre-Baath degree, Higgins moved through a challenged strangers to heated de- Syrian flag used by the series of jobs with no relation to bates over protests in Egypt or the opposition munitions, Syria or blogging.