The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is reportedly information from users of micro-blogging site Twitter to gather information, such as geolocation, to identify air strike targets in Libya, where it is not allowed to send in ground troops.
According to the Guardian, Nato officials have said that Twitter is being used as an intelligence tool in aerial attacks.
A Nato official told the Guardian, "We take all sorts of information, but we can’t act on a single source."
"It helps draw our attention to certain areas of the country where we see Gaddafi forces.[That] allows us to take action."
However, Nato official said that they are aware of the possibility that Muammar Gaddafi could be using Twitter to dupe them.
Nato spokesman Wing Commander Mike Bracken told the Guardian, "Any military campaign relies on something that we call ‘fused information’."
"So we will take information from every source we can. And if we get information from a press conference in Rome or we get information from somebody passing secondhand, we’ll get information from open source on the Internet, we’ll get Twitter, you name any source of media and our fusion centre will deliver all of that into useable intelligence.
"The commander will assess what he can use, what he can trust, and the experience of the operators, the intelligence officers, and the trained military personnel and civilian support staff will give him those options. And he will decide if that’s good information, I’m going to act on it. Where it comes from, again, it’s not relevant to the commander. He will use all that is available to deliver his mission."
