Open-Source Visibility and Security Risks in the Middle East

Open-source satellite imagery has fundamentally altered the security landscape of the Middle East. Platforms such as Google Earth and commercially produced geospatial data have made forms of intelligence once associated with state militaries widely accessible to organizations, researchers, journalists, and non-state actors. This has enabled armed groups to monitor infrastructure, assess battlefield conditions, and shape narratives without traditional intelligence networks.

In a region already characterized by asymmetric conflict and dense critical infrastructure, this shift raises a new policy challenge: not how to prevent access to open-source satellite imagery, but how governments can manage the strategic exposure that such visibility creates.

OSINT and Changing Intelligence Landscape

Open-source intelligence (OSINT) has long existed as a supplementary component of intelligence analysis, traditionally confined to media monitoring, academic research, and publicly available government documents. In recent years, however, advances in commercial satellite imagery, geospatial platforms, and digital dissemination have transformed OSINT into a strategically significant source of intelligence with direct implications for conflict dynamics.

Once tightly controlled by states, satellite imagery is now commercially available at resolutions sufficient to identify fixed military installations, critical infrastructure, urban morphology, and patterns of destruction. When combined with archival comparison and basic analytical tools, such imagery enables users to detect change over time through comparative satellite imagery analysis, generating structured insights without direct access to the battlefield.¹

Non-state actors can now derive situational awareness and shape perceptions of conflict dynamics using the same open-source ecosystem as journalists, civil society organizations, and international observers. As a result, the distinction between intelligence producers and intelligence consumers has become increasingly blurred.

In conflict-affected regions such as the Middle East, these dynamics are particularly pronounced. Protracted conflicts, dense urban environments, and high levels of international scrutiny have created conditions in which satellite imagery is continuously produced, circulated, and contested. While OSINT has enhanced transparency, accountability, and civilian harm documentation, it has also increased the visibility of both military and civilian infrastructure and complicated efforts to maintain informational asymmetry in conflict environments.²

How Non-State Groups Use OSINT

Non-state armed groups in the Middle East are increasingly integrating OSINT into their military and political operations. Rather than relying on state intelligence systems, these actors use OSINT selectively to compensate for limited resources, reduce operational risk, and shape perceptions of conflict. Across multiple conflict settings, there are four recurring functions that emerge: reconnaissance and targeting, operational planning and battlefield learning, strategic communication and narrative contestation, and humanitarian and civilian monitoring. These practices illustrate how open-source data enables learning and adaptation in asymmetric warfare.

Reconnaissance and Targeting

Publicly available satellite imagery enables the remote identification and monitoring of fixed installations such as military bases, border posts, ports, and energy infrastructure without physical presence or reliance on human intelligence networks. This form of observation is persistent, low-cost, and comparatively low risk.

For example, in Syria, publicly available satellite imagery has enabled detailed analysis of urban layouts, transportation routes, infrastructure damage, and proximity between civilian and military objects. Comparative imagery assessments over time can reveal patterns of destruction, reconstruction, and spatial change, generating insights relevant to conflict analysis and operational adaptations.³ A similar situation was observed in Iraq post-2014, where open-source mapping tools were used to produce detailed spatial analyses of urban destruction and infrastructure impacts. These publicly available methods illustrate the level of geospatial information that non-state actors may exploit for operational efficiency.⁴

Crucially, this form of reconnaissance does not require real-time imagery. Even periodically updated satellite data can provide sufficient intelligence to support targeting decisions, especially in relatively static environments such as fixed infrastructure, ports, energy facilities, or military installations. As a result, intelligence-led activity is no longer confined to actors with access to classified systems.

Operational Planning and Battlefield Learning

Beyond initial reconnaissance, OSINT supports operational learning in which non-state actors analyze terrain, urban density, and infrastructure over time to inform tactical decision-making.

By comparing imagery and geospatial data across time, non-state actors can identify changes in infrastructure activity, transportation routes, and broader spatial patterns of conflict without direct access to classified intelligence.⁵ This interactive use of OSINT can accelerate information assessment and support operational adaptation in dynamic conflict environments.⁶

In Iraq, satellite-based assessments of Mosul enabled detailed analysis of infrastructure damage, urban destruction, and conflict-related spatial change over time. These assessments illustrate the extent to which open-source geospatial analysis can support conflict monitoring and operational interpretation without reliance on classified intelligence.⁷

Strategic Communication and Narrative Contestation

Satellite imagery has become a central tool in the strategic communication efforts of non-state armed groups. Visual evidence enhances credibility while avoiding the disclosure of sensitive sources. As a result, OSINT serves not only military but also political and psychological functions.

In Lebanon, open-access satellite imagery has entered the public information environment primarily through international media reporting, shaping public perceptions about conflicts. For example, Reuters used commercial satellite images provided by Planet Labs to document extensive destruction in southern Lebanon following Israeli military operations.⁸ In Palestine, satellite imagery has been used to document the scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip, with analyses by agencies such as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) showing extensive destruction, contributing to debates and discussions about civilian harm and the use of disproportionate force by Israel.⁹

These practices highlight a shift in the exercise of narrative power in modern conflict. Strategic communication increasingly depends not on exclusive control of intelligence, but on the ability to navigate, synthesize, and signal within ecosystems shaped by open-source data.

Dual Use Dilemma: Humanitarian and Civilian Monitoring

One of the most complex dimensions of OSINT use by non-state actors lies in its dual-use application in civilian and humanitarian contexts. Satellite imagery and open-source geospatial tools are increasingly employed to monitor population movement, humanitarian corridors, aid distribution routes, and damage to civilian areas. A good example is the collaboration between the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and UNOSAT in Gaza to map damage in civilian structures using satellite imagery to assess humanitarian support, displacement estimates, and civilian protection calls.¹⁰ While such monitoring can support documentation and advocacy, it can also be leveraged for military or political objectives.

Non-state actors may analyze civilian density patterns, damage assessments following airstrikes, or humanitarian access routes to infer logistical flows and security conditions. This information shapes tactical decisions regarding the timing or location of operations.

Restricting access to satellite imagery risks undermining transparency and independent verification, while unrestricted access can inadvertently expose vulnerable civilian infrastructure or humanitarian operations. The blurring of lines between humanitarian documentation and military utility underscores the need for content-sensitive governance rather than blanket restrictions.

Taken together, these patterns demonstrate how OSINT functions as a force multiplier for non-state armed groups by enabling learning, adaptation, and narrative contestation over time. The strategic significance of OSINT lies less in immediate targeting advantages than in its capacity to reduce uncertainty, accelerate adaptation, and reshape information asymmetries in prolonged conflicts.

Why Current Frameworks Fall Short

The strategic use of OSINT by non-state actors has expanded faster than the policy frameworks designed to manage security risks worldwide, and in the Middle East, in particular. Existing governance gaps are not abstract; they are visible in how states, regional bodies, and commercial providers currently handle open-access satellite imagery during active conflicts.

At the national level, defense and counterterrorism institutions remain oriented toward managing classified intelligence and covert collection. Open-source satellite imagery, which is legally accessible and commercially produced, falls largely outside these frameworks. As a result, risks associated with infrastructure visibility and adversarial learning are often treated as secondary. Repeated public damage assessments of fixed sites in Syria, Iraq, and Gaza illustrate how patterns of destruction and reconstruction can be observed and compared over time from open imagery, highlighting a level of exposure that is not always systematically integrated into national assessment of non-state actor adaptation.¹¹

Regionally, the absence of coordinated approaches further amplifies exposure. Critical infrastructure such as energy facilities, ports, and transport corridors often serves multiple states or regional markets, yet there are no publicly shared regional mechanisms to assess OSINT-related vulnerabilities or manage crisis-time information sensitivity. For example, after the 2019 attack on Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq facility, commercial satellite imagery was rapidly circulated to assess damage and operational impact, demonstrating how open geospatial visibility can shape crisis understanding in real time even as regional protocols for information sensitivity remain ad hoc.¹²

Decisions on image resolution, update frequency, archival access, and crisis-related handling are typically made without consultation with regional security stakeholders. While some providers have implemented voluntary restrictions in specific cases, like Planet Labs restricting access to high-resolution imagery of the Gaza Strip for news agencies due to imagery showing sensitive information on military operations, the absence of standardized protocols leaves states and analysts reactive during periods of escalation.¹³

Finally, existing counterterrorism frameworks were developed for an era of closed intelligence ecosystems. They are poorly suited to counter threats that emerge from legal open-source environments. This mismatch allows OSINT-enabled practices to persist largely unaddressed, even as they reshape deterrence, civilian protection, and infrastructure security.

Reducing Risks

The growing use of open-source satellite imagery by non-state actors does not call for broad restrictions on access to information. Attempts to regulate the availability of imagery are unlikely to succeed in an environment where commercial providers operate across multiple jurisdictions. Rather than attempting to control the flow of open data, governments in the Middle East should focus both on reducing their own strategic exposure and on engaging commercial satellite providers through existing regulatory, diplomatic, and economic channels to encourage more responsible imagery practices.

The first step is recognizing that commercially available imagery now forms part of the operational environment. Governments should incorporate OSINT exposure assessments into security planning. Defense, interior, and critical infrastructure authorities should systematically evaluate how key sites, including military installations, energy facilities, ports, transportation hubs, and logistics corridors, appear in commercial satellite imagery and how such visibility can enable adversarial learning over time. These assessments should inform decisions about fortification, redundancy, spatial layout, and operational practices. Resilience must rely less on secrecy and more on design choices that reduce the strategic value of visible targets.

Second, although regional rivalries complicate intra-Middle Eastern coordination, many states in the region maintain close security partnerships with the United States and European allies. These existing defense and security relationships provide practical channels for discussing risks associated with open-source satellite imagery and sensitive infrastructure visibility. Rather than creating new regional mechanisms, governments can use established security cooperation frameworks to exchange best practices and coordinate approaches during periods of escalation.

Finally, governments in the Middle East, and in particular the Gulf, possess significant regulatory and economic leverage that can shape how commercial imagery providers operate in the region. Many states have already established national space agencies, telecommunications regulators, or licensing regimes governing geospatial data and satellite services. These existing regulatory frameworks provide mechanisms through which governments can engage directly with commercial providers and set conditions for operating in local markets. This could include voluntary protocols concerning imagery update frequency, archival access, and the handling of particularly sensitive infrastructure during periods of crisis. Because the region represents an important market for satellite imagery and geospatial services, governments can use licensing requirements and procurement relationships to encourage responsible industry practices without imposing blanket restrictions on open-source data.

Conclusion

OSINT is now a permanent feature of the Middle East’s conflict environment, reshaping how non-state actors learn, adapt, and communicate over time. The policy choice is no longer between openness and control, but between unmanaged exposure and strategic adaptation. Treating OSINT as a marginal or media-driven issue leaves states vulnerable. By integrating OSINT exposure into infrastructure planning, subjecting security practices to persistent open observation, and engaging commercial imagery providers through existing regulatory and diplomatic channels, governments can reduce the risks of open-source visibility without undermining transparency or humanitarian accountability.

Endnotes

¹ United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), satellite-based damage assessment reports, accessed May 17, 2026, https://unosat.org/products; Michael J. McNerney, Gabrielle Tarini, Nate Rosenblatt, Karen M. Sudkamp, Pauline Moore, Michelle Grisé, Benjamin J. Sacks, Larry Lewis, Understanding civilian harm in Raqqa and its implications for future operations, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, March 31, 2022), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA753-1.html.

² Linda Robinson, Todd C. Helmus, Raphael S. Cohen, Alireza Nader, Andrew Radin, Madeline Magnuson, Katya Migacheva, Modern political warfare: Current practices and possible responses, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, April 5, 2018), pp. 9–15, 27–32, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1772.html; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 2024: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), https://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2024.

³ “Infrastructure and roads damage assessment of Ar Raqqa, Ar Raqqa Governorate, Syria,” United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), December 5, 2017, https://unosat.org/products/1196.

⁴ UN-Habitat, City Profile of Mosul, Iraq: Multi-sector assessment of a city under siege, (Nairobi, Kenya: UN-Habitat, October 2016), https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-04/un-habitat_mosulcityprofile_lowres_170409_v6.pdf; United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), Search results for “mosul,” https://unosat.org/search?q=mosul.

⁵ Ollie Ballinger, “Radar Interference Tracker: A New Open Source Tool to Locate Active Military Radar Systems,” Bellingcat, February 11, 2022, https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2022/02/11/radar-interference-tracker-a-new-open-source-tool-to-locate-active-military-radar-systems/; Jesse Casana and Elise J. Laugier, “Satellite imagery-based monitoring of archeological site damage in the Syrian civil war,” PLOS ONE 12, no. 11 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188589.

⁶ Emily Harding, The IC’s New OSINT Strategy Gets the Basics Right, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 2, 2024), https://www.csis.org/analysis/ics-new-osint-strategy-gets-basics-right.

⁷ United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), Search results for “mosul,” https://unosat.org/search?q=mosul; UN-Habitat, City Profile of Mosul, Iraq: Multi-sector assessment of a city under siege, (Nairobi, Kenya: UN-Habitat, October 2016), https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-04/un-habitat_mosulcityprofile_lowres_170409_v6.pdf.

⁸ Maya Gebeilyand Milan Pavicic, “Israeli campaign leaves Lebanese border towns in ruins, satellite images show,” Reuters, October 28, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-campaign-leaves-lebanese-border-towns-ruins-satellite-images-show-2024-10-28.

⁹ “Damage density in the Gaza Strip | Satellite imagery analysis as of 19 October 2023,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, October 21, 2023, https://www.ochaopt.org/content/damage-density-gaza-strip-satellite-imagery-analysis-19-october-2023; The Humanitarian Data Exchange, “UNOSAT Gaza Strip Comprehensive Damage Assessment – 01 December 2024,” accessed April 20, 2026, https://data.humdata.org/dataset/unosat-gaza-strip-comprehensive-damage-assessment-01-december-2024.

¹⁰ “Damage density in the Gaza Strip | Satellite imagery analysis as of 19 October 2023,” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, October 21, 2023, https://www.ochaopt.org/content/damage-density-gaza-strip-satellite-imagery-analysis-19-october-2023; The Humanitarian Data Exchange, “UNOSAT Gaza Strip Comprehensive Damage Assessment – 01 December 2024,” accessed April 20, 2026, https://data.humdata.org/dataset/unosat-gaza-strip-comprehensive-damage-assessment-01-december-2024.

¹¹ Michael J. McNerney, Gabrielle Tarini, Nate Rosenblatt, Karen M. Sudkamp, Pauline Moore, Michelle Grisé, Benjamin J. Sacks, Larry Lewis, Understanding civilian harm in Raqqa and its implications for future operations, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, March 31, 2022), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA753-1.html; United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), Search results for “mosul,” https://unosat.org/search?q=mosul.

¹² “Strikes on Saudi oil disrupt global supply,” Graphics, Reuters, accessed April 20, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/graphics/SAUDI-ARAMCO/0100B29Q1C3/; “Satellite images show activity pick up at Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq site,” Reuters, September 26, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/satellite-images-show-activity-pick-up-at-saudi-aramcos-abqaiq-site-idUSKBN1WB0ZW/.

¹³ Max Tani, “Satellite companies are restricting Gaza images,” Semafor, November 6, 2023, https://www.semafor.com/article/11/05/2023/satellite-companies-are-restricting-gaza-images.