(Previous Incident Code: R4653 )

On the morning of  Monday, January 1st, 2024, two Kurdish civilian men, an uncle and his nephew, were killed and up to two civilians, including a six-year-old child, were injured in alleged artillery shelling with contested responsibility reportedly perpetrated by Syrian regime forces and/or Russian military and/or Iranian military in the village of Burj Haidar in the Sherawa district in the western countryside of Aleppo, Syria.

The sources provided the different names of the victims. Most of the sources identified the killed as Ziad Suleiman al-Hassan (59 years old) and his nephew, Ziyad Ahmed Al-Hassan (alternatively called Diaa al-Hassan) (37 years old). However, Facebook users Rohat M Ibrahim and Afrin-Gunde Blble district identified them as Ziad Salloum and Ziad Ahmed Salloum. A member of the Facebook group “Afrin sons” also called the 59-year-old man Ziad Salloum while mourning his death. The name of the injured child was reported by all the sources as Haroun Mohammed Hassan.

On New Year’s Day, the Syrian Civil Defense (SCD) reported multiple civilians injured and killed by “regime forces bombing” in a number of locations including the village of Burj Haidar. According to Al Jazeera Syria, six civilians were killed and 11 injured by artillery and missile shelling by #Syrian_regime forces on the city of Darat Azza and the villages of Kabashin and Burj Haidar in the countryside of #Aleppo. A few hours later, the SCD specified that “two civilians [were killed] in the village of Burj Haidar” and that “a child in the village of Burj Haidar was seriously wounded.”  A Facebook account “Echo of the Syrian North” reported about two injuries in Burj Haidar.

A Facebook page for “Afrin – Bulbul district” reported that “the citizen Ziad_Salloum and his young nephew Ziad_Ahmed_Salloum, residents of the village of Burj_Haydar (Jabal Liloun), Afrin countryside, were martyred as a result of a bombing that targeted his house in the village this morning. The source came from militants in the village of Nubl in the Aleppo countryside. The bombing also injured a child from the family who was taken to the hospital.”

On January 2, the SCD reported that Ziyad Hassan and Dia Hassan were reportedly victims of artillery and missile shelling by regime forces on the village of Burj Haidar in the Afrin countryside, north of #Aleppo. The SCD added: “They spent years hoping that the war would end, but the war stole their lives and filled their families with sadness. And it left them without a breadwinner… Behind every victim killed by the Assad regime’s terrorism are stories of oppression, sadness, and a harsh memory that is difficult to forget.”

In the same post, the SCD shared charming photographs of the two men. The late Ziad Suleiman was an elderly man with an elongated face, high forehead, and short-cropped gray hair dressed in a white shirt and an embroidered kaftan. His nephew Ziad Ahmed was a young clean-shaven man with a broad chin dressed in a blue shirt and standing in a picture in a flower shop.

The Monitoring Center in Afrin described the two men as “Kurdish citizens: Ziyad Suleiman Hassan, 59 years old [and] Ziyad Ahmed Hassan, 37 years old, from the village of Burj Haidar.” Additionally, it reported that “the child Haroun Muhammad Hassan, six years old, from the village of Burj Haidar, was also injured as a result of the bombing of the village, and he was transferred to the town of Bab al-Hawa in the Idlib countryside for treatment.”  The post also contained images of the two men and of the injured boy Haroun sitting in a car.

On January 3, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reported that “on January 1, 2024, Syrian regime forces fired multiple shells and rockets at Burj Haydar village in western rural Aleppo governorate, killing two adult civilians and injuring a young boy.” According to SNHR, “the area, which is under the control of armed opposition factions and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is located on the dividing lines with regime-held areas.”

Other sources attributed the attack to the Assad regime and/or other belligerents. On the day of the attack, Twitter/X user @walid_AL_idlibi described the bombing as being carried out by “Russian and Iranian occupation militias” while Idlib Agency Now named the belligerents as “Assad’s gangs”,  Facebook user Saud Sayah attributed the bombardment to “Assad regime and Iranian gangs”, and Twitter/X user @walid_AL_idlibi attributed the strike to the allies including Russian and Iranian military.

Therefore, Airwars had graded both Strike Status and Civilian Harm Status as Contested.