Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Four women and two or more children were killed and eight other civilians injured by Coalition strikes, according to local reports.
Iraqi Spring Media Center reported that the women were killed and injured by Coalition strikes that hit a home in Haramat in eastern Mosul. ISIL-controlled Al A’amaq Media posted a video of the aftermath, and interviewed witnesses who claimed that children were struck. Other outlets also cited the Al A’amaq video.
On March 4th the Coalition said that it was now assessing two incidents in Mosul on January 2nd: “Currently, 19 reports of civilian casualties are still being assessed: Jan. 2, 2017, near Mosul, Iraq, via social media report.” A month later the Coalition insisted that “Jan. 2, 2017, near Mosul, Iraq, via social media report: No Coalition strikes were conducted on that day in the geographic area of the reported civilian casualties.”
A second publicly unknown incident in Mosul that day was also denied by the Coalition.
Amnesty International interviewed what appear to be witnesses to the event. According to an unpublished account shared with Airwars: “Witnesses described the effects of one strike that they saw around 2 January in Hai Shuhada’. This was during a period of “preparatory shelling” in January, before the shelling intensified in February after which he stayed at home. The target was an ISIS weapons store in a house which contained a PKC machine gun and mortars. The house also contained civilian families who had no choice but to live there. ISIS had banned all civilian movement with a round the clock curfew. The families were all killed when the strike destroyed the house completely. Witnesses did not know how many people were killed but among the dead were women and children.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Summary
Sources (6) [ collapse]
Attached to this civilian harm incident is a provisional reconciliation of the Pentagon's declassified assessment of this civilian harm allegation, based on matching date and locational information.
The declassified documents were obtained by Azmat Khan and the New York Times through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits filed since March 2017, and are included alongside the corresponding press release published by the Pentagon. Airwars is currently analysing the contents of each file, and will update our own assessments accordingly.
US-led Coalition Assessment:
Civilian casualty statements
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No Coalition strikes were conducted on that day in the geographic area of the reported civilian casualties.
Original strike reports
For January 1st-2nd the Coalition publicly stated: “Near Mosul, six strikes engaged four ISIL tactical units; destroyed four mortars, five VBIEDs, a heavy machine gun, a vehicle, an ISIL-held building, a pontoon bridge, and three VBIED factories; disabled two bridges; damaged 31 supply routes; and suppressed six mortar teams.”