(Previous Incident Code: R4652 )

Shortly before 12:39 PM on Monday, January 1, 2024,  an alleged artillery strike with contested responsibility allegedly perpetrated by the Syrian regime forces and/or Russian military and/or Iranian military on the village of Kabashin located in Afrin countryside west of Aleppo, Syria, killed a 17-year-old civilian girl named Yasmine Louay Isso (Esso) and injured six more civilians, including two women and two children.

“Like thousands of Syrian women, she dreamed of a future in which she could live in safety, without war or the sound of shells, in which the sound of joy would be louder,” Syrian Civil Defense said in a social media post on January 2, referring to Isso.

“But the shells of the regime forces killed her yesterday, Monday, January 1, by bombing her home and her village of Kabashin in the northern countryside of #Aleppo. Yasmine passed away, leaving behind great sadness for her family.”

Syrian Civil Defense, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, and the Monitoring Center in Afrin all stated that the woman killed in Kabashin was Yasmine Louay Isso, whom the Monitoring Center reported was 17 years of age. Several sources shared photos of Isso, with one depicting her in a Disney sweater and a headscarf. Another showed her wearing red lipstick and heavy makeup.

The Syrian Civil Defense, the most authoritative source on the incident, offered several updates on the strike on Kabashin, which it said took place alongside similar attacks on the nearby areas of Burj Haidar and Darat Azza. Many sources offered death tolls that did not distinguish between the strikes in these three locations.

Syrian Civil Defense put the final toll at one civilian killed and six injured in Kabashin, three killed and four injured in Darat Azza, and two killed and one injured in Burj Haidar, a total of six killed and 11 injured in the combined strikes. Al Jazeera Syria reported this total figure.

Syrian Civil Defense put forward several updates on the toll of the strikes, offering a final figure of one civilian killed and six injured in Kabashin. The injured included two men, two women, and two children, according to the organization.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights stated that Kabashin was on the “dividing line” of territory held by government forces and the armed group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Two sources, Twitter user @Jamil_Alhasaan and Facebook user Ahmed Abdel, said that Kurds were among those killed in Kabashin, but neither directly mentioned Isso. Jamil Al Hassan was a Syrian journalist reporting on the events live at 1:47 PM on January 1, and the sounds of shelling were audible in the background.

Where sources identified the belligerent, sources such as the Syrian Civil Defense, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, and the Syrian News Agency SANA attributed the strikes to the “regime” of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. A number of social media users attributed the strikes to the more ambiguous “gangs” of Assad, which could possibly include allied paramilitaries. One source, Twitter user @walid_AL_idlibi, stated that Russian and Iranian forces were behind the strike.

Based on the attribution of the strike to different belligerents, Airwars has graded both Strike Status and Civilian Harm Status as Contested.