In an incident previously unknown to Airwars, at approximately 9am on June 29, 2016 one civilian was reported killed by an alleged US-led Coalition drone strike in Al-Khadraa neighbourhood in Hammam Al-Alil, Nineveh, Iraq. Testimony volunteered by relative Ali Jasim Mohammed Jasim was shared directly with Airwars, which forms the basis for this harm record. Airwars found no corroborating open source information regarding the incident, which may be due to the ISIS occupation which was in place in and around Mosul which tightly controlled access to internet and media. The full testimony is included in our source list below.

Ali Jasim told reported that 52-year-old Jasim Mohammed Jasim Mohammed Al-Bashiri was walking toward Juma’a Al-Warath / Ahmed Al-Mahmoud Mosque, his local mosque, when he was killed instantly by a missile strike, according to eyewitness testimony from his son Ali Jasim Mohammed Jasim. As the family was observing Ramadan, Jasim was heading to the mosque to read the Quran until the noon prayer time – something that he did daily during Ramadan.

Following the initial strike, Ali stated that the drone continued to hover until eventually departing.

Jasim was a father and the sole provider for his family. He had suffered the debilitating effects of a stroke and struggled to walk. According to official documentation from the Nineveh Governorate government, Jasim was an employee of Mosul Municipality.

The documentation from the Nineveh government show that Jasim was officially recognized among “Victims, Martyrs, and Injured….as a result of Military Operations, Military Errors, and Terrorist Operations” with verification that “the cause of death stated in the death certificate was consistent with what was stated in the witnesses’ testimonies: as a result of an airstrike in the Hammam al-Alil area on 6/29/2016”.

Page 8 of the document notes that an investigation into the incident took place on January 16, 2019, nearly two and a half years after the incident reportedly occurred. Signed by Lieutenant Colonel Na’aman Mohammed Haigel, the document notes that the material investigation into the site of the strike found that “No evidence remain[ed] at the scene to aid the investigation due to the passage of time and the disappearance of all traces of the incident.”

As the Iraqi Government was an official Coalition partner, documents released by state authorities, like the documents signed by the Nineveh Governorate, rarely name the Coalition as responsible for an airstrike or death. The documents certifying Jasim’s death are no exception, with the Governorate attributing his death to an airstrike, without naming an alleged belligerent. However, as Coalition partners were the only actors in Iraq at the time known to have airstrike capabilities, the reference to the ‘airstrike’ has been taken as a reference to the Coalition. This will be updated should additional information become available.

Ali emphasized that his family had no ties to terrorism, specifically mentioning that their own family member, Jasim’s son Ahmed Jasim Al-Bashiri, a member of the 4th Nineveh Police Emergency Battalion was killed in action during a battle against ISIS in the 17 Tammuz neighborhood.

Describing the location of the strike, Ali detailed the narrow alleyway that his father was walking down –  approximately 4 meters wide and 40 meters long, consisting only of residential buildings. Ali shared images from the alleyway, including some which show the pocked cement walls – signs of missile fragments left after the strike.

The US-led Coalition announced that “Near Mosul, four strikes struck four separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL vehicles and an ISIL supply cache.” The Coalition did not further clarify which locations “near Mosul” were hit, a description which could apply to Hammam al-Alil which is part of the Mosul area.

Regarding the location of the strike, Ali shared images of the strike site along with an Apple Maps link with pinned coordinates 36.1709232, 43.2492148, and noted that Jasim was walking to the mosque when he was killed. The coordinates Ali shared matched those of the images. Comparing the coordinates to those of Jama’a Al-Warath / Jama’a Ahmed Mahmoud (جامع الوراث / جامع أحمد محمود), Jasim was approximately 214 meters from the mosque when he was killed.

Page 8 of the Nineveh Governorate government documents includes a map of the neighbourhood, as well as a note indicating that the strike occurred about 300 meters from the police headquarters. Ali told Airwars that the police headquarters was located at a civilian house when the investigation was conducted in 2019, and shared screenshots from a map indicating where the temporary police headquarters stood. Comparing the two locations, Airwars found that they were approximately 190 meters apart.

This incident has been graded as a “likely strike” and “fair” based on the collection of the documentation from the Nineveh government, alongside witness testimony.