Geolocation
Airwars assessment
A local source told Airwars’ Iraq-based field researcher that three families have died in the village of Abu Jarbuha, followed Coalition airstrikes allegedly destroyed their homes.
With British airstrikes confirmed in the area that day, Airwars reached out to the MoD, with information which included geolocates within 1km of the likely vicinity of the event (36.41241, 43.31882.)
An MoD official subsequently told Airwars that “From the evidence you have provided… we cannot make any definitive assessment. However, I can confirm that there was no indication of any civilian casualties in our own detailed assessments of the impact of each of our strikes on the dates in question.
A UN report on the protection of civilians in context of Nineveh operations and the retaking of Mosul stated: ‘On 24 October 2016, an airstrike reportedly hit a house in Abu-Jarbu’a village in Bashiqa subdistrict of Mosul killing six civilians–two children, two women and two men–from two families and also wounding four civilians–two children, one woman and a man.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Abu Jarbua (أبو جربوعة), for which the generic coordinates are: 36.41241, 43.31882. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (2) [ collapse]
Attached to this civilian harm incident is a provisional reconciliation of the Pentagon's declassified assessment of this civilian harm allegation, based on matching date and locational information.
The declassified documents were obtained by Azmat Khan and the New York Times through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits filed since March 2017, and are included 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
-
The report contains insufficient information of the time, location and details to assess its credibility.
Original strike reports
For October 23rd-24th 2016, the Coalition reported “Near Mosul, six strikes engaged four ISIL tactical units, two rocket systems, two anti-aircraft artillery systems and two staging areas; destroyed 19 fighting positions, 17 vehicles, 10 heavy machine guns, nine mortar systems, eight command and control nodes, six repeater towers, and four tunnels; and damaged four fighting positions, two vehicles, a mortar system, and a tunnel.”