Geolocation
Airwars assessment
One civilian was injured following an airstrike that destroyed his family home, according to the eyewitness.
Amnesty International shared the following field report with Airwars, citing an eyewitness: “I’m a simple ‘free worker’ from the same area in Hai Tenak. My friends and I make a living buying and selling car parts. I left on 17 April. This was before the area was liberated. The airstrikes (presumed) started during the day on 10 April. The airstrikes could be quite precise. The drones in the sky would spot ISIS targets, ISIS cars or mortar positions and after that the strikes would occur.
On 15 April I was at home with my wife and 10 children. I have four sons and four daughters and we live in a simple one storey house in Hai Tenak. The youngest child is three and the oldest is 20. We were hiding in the back room of our house. For four days we’d been hiding in that room. At around 9am my 9 year old daughter needed the bathroom. She got up and went outside into the hallway and into the bathroom. She came back and then the explosion happened. The rocket landed three metres away from my house and the bathroom completely collapse. Had my daughter been in there at the time she’d have been killed.”
I was injured in the leg but I’m not sure how it happened. After the explosion we all ran from the house and hid in another house that was empty. The ISF had told us to stay in our houses. ISIS were in a house across the street from us. Someone must have informed the ISF. I had hung my children’s clothes on the roof of our home so that the ISF would know that it’s a family home, not an ISIS home. The children’s clothes were on the roof when the rocket landed.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Summary
Sources (1) [ 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
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After a review of available information and strike video it was assessed that there is insufficient evidence to find civilians were harmed in this strike.
Original strike reports
For April 14th-15th: “Near Mosul, five strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit, destroyed two rocket-propelled grenade systems, destroyed two fighting positions, damaged four supply routes and a fighting position, and suppressed an ISIS tactical unit.”