On April 28, 2025, eight civilians died in Yemen after a U.S. airstrike hit a barn near Sanaa. On paper, the coordinates looked like a military target—something worth striking. But there was just one problem: those exact coordinates had been posted weeks earlier by two amateur open-source intelligence (OSINT) enthusiasts on Twitter. Not by an intelligence agency. Not by anyone with a security clearance. But by hobbyists with smartphones and satellite apps, sharing their analysis in full view of the world.
It sounds like a dystopian plot twist, but it’s real—and deadly.
The U.S. Navy, part of a military apparatus with a defense budget north of $800 billion, seemingly bombed a location flagged not by analysts at Langley or Tampa, but by two Twitter users: one from the Netherlands, another from the U.S. Neither is in the military. Neither has formal intelligence training. But both posted those coordinates on April 1, citing the site as a potential Houthi location.
Then, 27 days later, a U.S. airstrike obliterated it.
Coincidence? Maybe. But it raises a profoundly uncomfortable question: why is the world’s most powerful military apparently getting its targeting data from social media?
This isn’t the first time the U.S. military’s grip on information discipline has faltered in Yemen. Just weeks ago, senior officials were exposed after a Signal group chat discussing sensitive Yemen operations was inadvertently shared with a journalist. That’s right—America’s military command, casually typing away about drone strikes and air campaigns, in an unsecured app, with a random journalist in the room. It’s the kind of lapse that makes a high school group project look like a top-secret planning cell.
It seems there’s a pattern here: whether it’s leaking intelligence in Signal group chats or bombing a target someone tweeted about, the U.S. is blurring the line between amateurism and lethality. You would think after the Abu Ghraib scandal, the Bagram files, or even the farcical “Chinese spy balloon panic,” the military would have tightened the bolts on information hygiene. Instead, it appears more comfortable crowd-sourcing battlefield intelligence than vetting it with its own resources.
Let’s be clear: OSINT has transformed modern conflict. What began as a fringe community of nerds tracking tank movements via satellite imagery has grown into a formidable force of digital sleuths. From confirming war crimes in Ukraine to tracking shadow tankers dodging sanctions in the Gulf, OSINT has real-world impact. But it was never meant to replace professional intelligence services. And it certainly wasn’t meant to be used as direct justification for pulling a trigger that kills civilians.
After the Yemen strike, the OSINT community involved responded with a mix of shock and shame. One of the Twitter users, @VleckieHond, admitted she hadn’t expected her post to lead to such consequences. In an attempt at restitution, she donated €500—split between Médecins Sans Frontières and the Yemen Data Project. That’s roughly €62.50 per dead civilian. As if blood can be converted into euros and cleared with a bank transfer.
This wasn’t just a moral failing. It was a systems failure. A failure of intelligence validation, a breakdown of professional skepticism, and, perhaps most dangerously, a failure to question the source. If the U.S. military, with its arsenal of satellites, spy planes, field agents, and human sources, can’t tell the difference between Twitter chatter and actionable intelligence, we’re all in trouble.
And what about the civilians? They’re left in rubble. Their names never trend. Their deaths are footnotes in someone else’s OSINT hobby. For the analysts who posted the coordinates, this story may pass. They can delete their tweets, turn off notifications, and go silent. But the civilians who died? They don’t get to log off. And neither should we.
The real tragedy here isn’t just that civilians were killed. It’s that the chain of decisions—military, digital, and human—that led to their deaths is becoming all too familiar. OSINT is powerful. It can illuminate truth, track war criminals, and expose lies. But it is also dangerous when weaponized without accountability. And when the world’s most powerful navy takes its cues from social media without confirming the source, it’s not just a blunder. It’s a disgrace.
America’s credibility in conflict zones like Yemen has long been bruised. This latest episode rips the wound wide open. If the Navy really acted on tweets, then this wasn’t precision warfare—it was algorithmic assassination.
What comes next? Hopefully, not another mistake. Hopefully, not another tweet turned into a crater. But until there’s real accountability, real professionalism, and real skepticism within the institutions that hold the power to kill, we should all be watching. Because next time, the coordinates might be yours.
