Geolocation
Airwars assessment
A girl was reportedly killed by shells fired into Busraya, with the Coalition or the US-backed SDF are believed to be responsible.
Although reportage suggested the strike occurred on the 1t of July, Amnesty field notes suggested that it happened between the beginning of June and the end of July.
According to the Amnesty and Airwars’s joint April 2019 report “War in Raqqa: Rhetoric versus Reality”, before the airstrike on August 1st, the Hamzawi family also lost Fatima, another child of Hammada and Sabah, in an artillery strike on their home. Her parents Hammada and Sabah, were killed in a Coalition air strike a month later.”
A relative, Amer Hamzawi, told Amnesty in a testimony that “My uncle and aunt were still mourning the loss of their daughter and then they suffered the same unjust fate.”
A majority of sources said that artillery shells caused the death whereas some believed it was caused by mortar shells. @24Raqqa reported that it was a combination of the two.
Airwars understands that the SDF does not have access to artillery.
Despite this, it has since been confirmed by Amnesty ground research that the strikes were artillery.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (8) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (1) [ collapse]
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'The girl Fatima al Hamzawi, from Harat al Bousaraya in Raqqa city, killed in Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces mortar shells fired on Harat al Bousaraya'. (via, SN4HR)
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 it was assessed that no Coalition strikes were conducted in the geographical area that correspond to the report of civilian casualties
Original strike reports
For July 1st-July 2nd: “Near Raqqah, nine strikes engaged eight ISIS tactical units and destroyed seven fighting positions, a tactical vehicle, a front-end loader, a mortar system and a heavy machine gun.”
It additionally reported that “On July 1, near Raqqah, Syria, five strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units, destroyed a fighting position and a heavy machine gun, and suppressed 27 fighting positions.”
‘Saturday 1 July – A Reaper eliminated a mortar team and Typhoons dealt with a heavy machine-gun, both in Raqqa. Tornados hit three Daesh positions in Mosul…A Reaper remotely piloted aircraft patrolled over Raqqa on Saturday 1 July. A mortar was reported firing on the SDF, and the Reaper’s crew spotted its muzzle flashes from a position concealed beneath a tree. A Hellfire missile destroyed the target. Typhoons were also active over the city, where they used a Paveway IV to silence a heavy machine-gun which was holding up an SDF advance. '