A reported Coalition airstrike at 3.45pm killed up to seven civilians including two children, at Nahiyat Sereen near Aleppo.
One young victim, Mohammad Jassen Al Abou Rakan, was decapitated in the incident, with graphic images of his body widely distributed on social media.
Islamic State later published a propaganda video of the event, including interviews with eyewitnesses and rescuers. One man told the camera: “Civilians coming here to get bread are getting killed. What is this? Where are civilians supposed to go? Are they supposed to go to the wilderness to save themselves? Damn them.“
Another man described the buildings reportedly hit in the raid: “Today the coalition planes came to continue what the criminals from the PKK had started. More than 4 or five missiles were fired at once destroying many houses. The house of Hajj Ali and the house of the son of Hajj Ali; the house of Ali Al Hassani; the house of Mohammad Al Hajrashi; and a big number of civilian shops. All the victims are civilians that have nothing to do with what is happening at all.“
The Syrian Observatory also reported activity by Turkish aircraft in the region on this date.
In its civilian casualty report for October 2019 – published on December 5th of that year, the Coalition assessed this event as ‘not credible, asserting: “July 23, 2015, in Aleppo, Syria, via Airwars report. After a review of all available records it was assessed that no Coalition actions were conducted in the geographical area that corresponds to the report of civilian casualties. 2806/CS104 37SCA328084”.
Officials published a location for the event to within 100 metres of where they had remotely assessed the incident.
The incident occured at 3:45 pm local time.
