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WhoWasInCommand.com is our free to use, public database of security force units and organizational structures, command personnel and areas of operation.
Security Force Monitor supports human rights researchers, litigators and investigative journalists working to make state security forces more accountable.
We are a non-profit research group that analyzes thousands of public records to create a simple searchable database of the commanders and the command structures, locations, and areas of operations of security force units and investigate their potential connections to alleged human rights violations.
How we work
Open Source research & data
We conduct open source research and publish detailed information about the command structures of the police, military and other branches of state controlled security forces around the world.
Supporting your investigations
We provide research, technical and data analysis support to human rights researchers, litigators and investigative journalists.
Latest news from Security Force Monitor
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Methodology: Connecting US Sales to the Saudi-Emirati Led Coalition
This methodology guide is a companion piece to the joint Washington Post Security Force Monitor investigation into U.S. support for the Saudi-Emirati led coalition. The Post-SFM joint investigation shows that only 39 air force units from coalition countries could have conducted airstrikes in Yemen, and that during seven years of war the U.S. approved contracts that likely benefited 38 of the 39 airstrike units.
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New data on security and defence forces of Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad added to WhoWasInCommand.com
We have added extensive data on the organizational structure and command personnel of the security and defence forces of Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger to WhoWasInCommand. With this update WhoWasInCommand now covers all the states of the G5 Sahel along with the Force conjointe transfrontalière du G5 Sahel, a joint transnational counter-terror operation launched in July 2017.
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Our updated database shows the 9,771 times the U.S. trained foreign military units between Oct 2019 and Sept 2020
The U.S. Department of State has just published the Foreign Military Training and DOD Engagement Activities of Interest report for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. We've liberating it from the PDFs they published, adding 9,771 new training interventions to our database, which now contains a total of 237,603 trainings covering the two decades from 2000 to September 2020.
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New research paper from Security Force Monitor: using Natural Language Processing to extract knowledge graphs about police and army units and their commanders
Security Force Monitor has published a technical working paper on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and our research into abuses by police and armies. It shows how a NLP system can be deployed to extract information from sources on security force units and their related personnel. This is a practical contribution into the ongoing conversation about the tactical use of AI in human rights work.