Airwars assessment
An airstrike on the village of Fadiliya near Bashiqa, north of Mosul, killed between 5 and 11 civilians according to reports.
NINA, citing a peshmerga source, said that three Daesh militants and 11 non-combatants died in a coalition strike. In contrast Arb-q cited a security source as saying that an unidentified airstrike had killed “five members of one family: the father and mother, and three children.“
BasNews, making no mention of civilian casualties, said that a coalition strike had killed a local Islamic State commander known as Abu A’isha, a Syrian national, and three of his men.
A day later Islamic State reportedly destroyed six empty Christian homes in the town, in what may have been a retaliatory act.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Summary
Sources (4) [ collapse]
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Fadhiliya (فايده), Nineveh Province, Iraq, near Bashiqah town (بعشيقة), which is located approximately 17 km North East of Mosul. The coordinates for the midpoint of Fadhiliya (فايده) are: 36.5125336, 43.2689667. A note on alternative Arabic spellings: Kurdish: Fezîle (فەزيلە); Arabic: al-Fāḍliyat (الفاضلية), al-Fāḍliyah (الفاضليه) or Faṣīliyat (فصيلية)
Attached to this civilian harm incident is the Pentagon's declassified assessment of this civilian harm allegation, obtained by Azmat Khan and the New York Times through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits filed since March 2017, 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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fter a review of available information it was assessed that no Coalition strikes were conducted in the geographical area that correspond to the report of civilian casualties.
Original strike reports
On April 19th-20th the coalition reported four strikes in the vicinity: “Near Mosul, four airstrikes struck an ISIL staging area, destroying four ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL armored vehicle and an ISIL excavator.“