Up to three civilians were reported killed and up to 15 others were wounded by declared US airstrikes on the Al-Sikak area in the city of Al-Qaim, Iraq early in the morning on February 3, 2024. Between three and five medical personnel in the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) were also allegedly killed. Another 11 PMF members were also allegedly killed and 36 injured. US forces claimed that damage was also caused by a secondary explosion that occurred after the strike.
Two of the three civilians alleged killed were named, Abdul Rahman Al-Rawi and Sattar Al-Jughaifi, with most sources stating that they were not members of any militant group; including sources spoken to directly by Airwars researchers. However one source, Usama Al Ma’mouri, listed the two individuals under the caption ‘martyrs of the Anbar and Al-Tafuf Brigade’. Airwars has therefore included the individuals only in our maximum casualty range.
ِAl Baghdadi News reported that a young man named Abdul Rahman Khaled Al-Rawi was killed in the city of Al-Qaim, and Nisreen Al Mousawi reported that the bodies of two civilians had been recovered after the US strikes, Abdul Rahman Al-Rawi and Sattar Al-Jughaifi. According to Nisreen Al Mousawi, at the time of reporting, “there are a number of martyrs and wounded from the Al-Sikak area who have not been reached yet, and ambulances are rushing to the area.” Local sources including ِAbu Ibrahim Al Sabhani offered condolence messages to the family of Abdul Rahman Khaled Al Rawi for their loss, and a post by Journalist Ali Qais Al-Rawi included details that Abdul Rahman was born in 2004 and was a student at Al-Qaim Industrial Preparatory School in his 5th year of the electricity department.
Aِ tweet from @AzharJumaili provided details that more than 10 houses had been burned in the Al-Sikak area, and that 15 civilians were injured so far, including those that lived near the PMF base. A post from Waleed al Obeidi reported that 3 civilians had been killed and 11 had been wounded in Al-Qaim district.
Journalist Ali Qais Al-Rawi spoke with people in Al-Qaim who said that the airstrikes “were the most violent and powerful”. Local sources told Reuters that the struck neighborhood in Al-Qaim is a residential area that was being used by armed groups to store large amounts of weapons, and that the US strikes and secondary explosion caused widespread damage.
A Facebook post by Usama Al Ma’mouri included the names of three people who were identified as medical assistants of a brigade: nurse Qasim Mohsen Sajet, nurse Zulfiqar Talaat Abd, and nurse Abdullah Ibrahim Abdul Jabbar. Medical professionals are considered protected persons under international humanitarian law.
The post also included the names of seven others identified as members of the Anbar and Al-Tafuf Brigade operations: Atheer Jaber Salman, Abdul Abbas Abdullah Abbas, Safaa Hussein Majeed, Hussein Ali Ismail, Hamza Qati Radi Al-Jamali, Abdul Rahman Khaled, Sattar Al-Jughaifi. This contests the sources who reported that Khaled Abdul Rahman and Sattar were both civilians. A post from Bani Hajeem added the name Ajami Dhidan Al-Ghanimi to the list of militants killed while Ghaith Ayed added the names Shammar Kawam Al-Khader and Kazem Abdel Hamza Alwan Al-Aifari.
The ِInformation Directorate of the PMF released a statement that strikes resulted in the death of 16 and the injury of 36 others, and that the search was still ongoing for bodies. The statement broke the casualties down to their specific rolls in the PMF: Anbar Operations Mobile Headquarters and the 13th Brigade Support Battalion (seven killed and seven wounded), Logistics support headquarters (one wounded), artillery location (one killed and four wounded), armor location (three killed and ten wounded), Tank battalion location (four wounded), Two sites belonging to the 45th Brigade (11 wounded), Issam Al-Baldawi Medical Hospital (five killed).
The Assistant for Medical Affairs in the PMF also accused the US of “targeting medical detachments and hospitals belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces in the Al-Qaim district” and provided the names of those who were killed when hospitals affiliated with the PMU were struck: Qasim Mohsen Sajet, Zulfiqar Talaat Abd, Abdullah Ibrahim Abd al-Jabbar, Atheer Jaber Salman, and Abd al-Abbas Abd Allah Abbas.
The Iraqi government spokesman, Basem Al-Awadi, confirmed that the strikes resulted in the deaths of 16 people, including civilians, and caused “major damage” to homes and private property. In response, the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs also summoned the temporary Chargé d’Affairs at the United States Embassy in Baghdad, Mr. David Burger, and issued an official memorandum of protest which denounced “the American aggression that targeted Iraqi security forces as well as civilian sites in the Akashat and Al-Qaim regions, which led to martyrs and injuries, including civilians, in addition to damage to residential buildings and property.”
US CENTCOM released a statement that at 4pm EST (12:00am in Iraq and Syria) “U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups. U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States. The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions. The facilities that were struck included command and control operations centers, intelligence centers, rockets, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicle storage, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces.”
A statement from the Department of Defense added that “National security officials said the facilities targeted in today’s strikes were carefully selected to avoid civilian casualties and were based on clear evidence that they were connected to attacks on U.S. personnel” and John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator was quoted as saying “The Department of Defense is in the early stages of battle damage assessment, but we believe that the strikes were successful,” adding the details that the strikes were against seven facilities utilized by Iran’s IRCG, three of the facilities were in Iraq and four of them were in Syria, and more than 125 precision-guided munitions were fired over the course of 30 minutes. According to Army Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II, director of operations for the Joint Staff, the strikes employed “multiple aircraft, including B-1 Lancers that flew from bases in the U.S.”
Arabi21 News also quoted Director of Operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Douglas Sims, who stated that the strikes were “very successful, which led to large secondary explosions resulting from strikes that hit their weapons.” An unnamed American official also told Arabi21 that the US targeted “a small number of “dynamic targets” that appeared as the mission began, including a surface-to-air missile site and drone launch sites.”
The incident occured between 4:00 pm and 4:30 pm local time.
