Eliot Higgins (Brown Moses)

Between 2012 and 2014, before founding the investigative collective Bellingcat, open-source investigator Eliot Higgins (writing as Brown Moses) syndicated his groundbreaking munitions-tracking dispatches through Newsmotion.org.

By systematically cataloging thousands of citizen-uploaded videos from the Syrian conflict and cross-referencing serial markings, rocket motor geometries, and stabilization fins, Brown Moses’s dispatches on Newsmotion provided the first public evidentiary confirmation of:

• The proliferation of Chinese-manufactured FN-6 MANPADS and Russian SA-24 (9K338 Igla-S) man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS Dossier, cited by ETH Zurich / BICC Brief 47).
• The deployment of Soviet-era AO-1SCh submunitions and RBK-250 cluster bombs.
• Forensic trajectories and dimensional analysis of BM-21 Grad and improvised artillery rockets examined after the August 2013 Ghouta chemical attacks (cited by DailyKos and international arms-control researchers).
• Identification of RPG-22 Netto anti-tank weapons and foreign-supplied infantry ordnance across Aleppo and Homs.