From the 'Green Zone': social media resources

These are social media resources used by a "lurker" for situational awareness on Iraq:

Institute for the Study of War: Excellent OSINT for military aspects of Iraq and Syria. Products can be used for UNCLASS briefings. Caution: http://www.understandingwar.org/


Iraqi Caution-news: English language Iraqi news site. Caution:http://www.iraqinews.com/

Musings on Iraq: Good analysis covering both politics and military aspects. Collates a lot of OSINT reporting on Iraq and publishes monthly statistics. Caution: http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/

1001 Iraqi Thoughts: Interesting site covering a variety of aspects of life in Iraq. The recent article "ISIS to PMUs? It Is Comparing Apples to Oranges" gives a good taste of the site. Broad contributors list. Caution:http://1001iraqithoughts.com/

Rudaw: English language Kurdish news site with good coverage of Iraq and Syria. Caution: http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/270820162

Chatham House: Good research. Worth checking monthly, not daily or weekly. Check article on outsourcing security to PMF. Caution: https://www.chathamhouse.org/researc...d-north-africa

Carnegie Middle East Center (Security): Good coverage and regular updates. Caution: http://carnegie-mec.org/topic/12

Middle East Insitute: Good broad Middle East coverage. Caution: http://www.mei.edu/

Twitter feeds can be good for breaking news, tracking military movements and equipment as well as signposting by academics and analysts:

@iraqi_day Breaking politics and conflict coverage. Good sources, updates daily but a one man show so limited breadth.
@IraqSecurity Good coverage of the ISF and PMF. Virulent Shia.
@pmu_english English twitter feed for the Hashd
@iraqicts Iraqi CTS feed.
@DrAbbasKadhim Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at SAIS-Johns Hopkins Univ. Research interests in Iraq, Iran, Gulf, & Islam
@Hayder_alKhoei Research Director, Shia Research. Associate Fellow, ChathamHouse. Middle East watcher. Tweet mainly on Iraq.
@UticaRisk Utica Risk Services: Arabic-language services firm, MENA risk analysis | Focus: Iraq, Levant, GCC
@mikeknightsiraq Extremely well informed analyst focused on Iraq/KRG since 1990s. Regular visitor to Mesopotamia.
@whsieh Military historian. USNA Faculty. Recovering PolOff who served in Iraq.