(Previous Incident Code: I198)

The attempted US targeted killing of the Australian Neil Prakash, ‘an ISIL external operations facilitator’ instead “struck three civilians on the road and one civilian located on an adjacent compound,” CENTCOM admitted three months later.

Among the four civilians who were killed in the airstrike that day, one man was named by local sources, Ziad Khalaf Awad, who was a university teacher.

Although Neil Prakash was widely reported killed in the attack at the time, the New York Times confirmed in November 2016 that he was still alive: “An Australian, Neil Prakash, was targeted in a strike around the same time. A senior American official said that Mr Prakash was wounded but survived. In the last few weeks, however, a Middle Eastern government arrested Mr Prakash, another senior American military official said.” ABC News Australia reported that Prakash “was arrested by Turkish officials when he tried to cross the Syrian border into Turkey using false documents and a fake name.”

According to the New York Times, “among the injured was Hassan Aleiwi Muhammad Sultan, now 16, who was playing soccer nearby and still has shrapnel in his spinal cord. His family can barely afford his wheelchair.”

In July 2019, the Coalition provided Airwars with the location of this incident, accurate to within a 100 metre box.