Palestinians using Google Earth for rocket strikes

London, Oct 26: Google Earth, the Internet site providing detailed satellite maps of the world, is being used by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip to select targets in Israel for rocket attacks.

Earlier also Google Earth came under fire for allegedly aiding militants in executing their terror attacks. A failed attack on oil facilities in Yemen was reportedly planned with its use in September 2006, the Telegraph reported.

However, in January this year, after The Daily Telegraph revealed that Iraqi insurgents were using the website to attack British bases in Basra, the company took the rare step of replacing the images of military positions there with others taken before the war.

Google Earth, in partnership with the world's most advanced commercial imaging satellite the Digital Globe, also responded immediately to provide high resolution photographs during unfolding crises such as the fires now raging in California, the daily reported.

The reports said that in the last six weeks since Israel's air strike against Syria, Google Earth has provided new imagery of the barren desert along the Euphrates River where the strike is believed to have occurred.

The website has allowed the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security to pinpoint a complex that, according to them, was likely to have housed a small nuclear reactor, which was capable of making about one nuclear weapon's worth of plutonium each year.

ANI

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