Geolocation
Airwars assessment
A single local source reported that dozens of civilians were killed and injured after Coalition airstrikes allegedly hit Tal Afar city, West of Mosul.
According to Yaqein, “dozens of civilians were killed and wounded on Monday in a raid by coalition warplanes in the district of Tal Afar west of the city of Mosul, the province of Nineveh, as part of military operations launched by the aircraft supported by the Popular Populist militia and international coalition aircraft on the outskirts of Nineveh. A news source said in a statement that “F16 aircraft of the joint forces carried out an air strike targeted the district of Tal Afar west of the city of Mosul, Benin. The raid resulted in the death and wounding of dozens of civilians who have not been counted so far,” the source said. The source pointed out that “the operation was based on intelligence cell information coming from Nineveh.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the town of Tall Afar (تل عفر), for which the generic coordinates are: 36.375659, 42.451536. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
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
-
After 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. (1363)
Original strike reports
For April 22nd-23rd 2017, the Coalition reported: “Near Tal Afar, one strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS fuel truck.”