Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Ten civilians died including different generations of the same family in an alleged Coalition airstrike on Raqqa.
All sources pointed towards the Coalition carrying out an air or artillery strike. Airwars understands that only the Coalition has access to artillery in Raqqa.
The date has been changed due to further Amnesty field research confirming the date to be July 13th.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, it “managed to document the death of seven citizens. They include a man, two of his sons, his daughter and his grandson, as a result of the strikes carried out by warplanes of the International Coalition.”
In the Amnesty and Airwars’s joint April 2019 report “War in Raqqa: Rhetoric versus Reality”, it was reported that “A double airstrike killed six members of the Shabshoul family and four of their neighbours. The first strike killed Noora Shabshoul and her 1-year-old son and a neighbour. The second strike killed four other family members and three neighbours who had rushed over to rescue the victims of the first Strike.”
Randa, the mother, gave a testimony to Amnesty stating that “We were in our home, 16 of us, the whole family. Didn’t the surveillance planes see that this was a house full of civilians? And why did they bomb again when neighbours came to help after the first bombing?”
The incident occured at 20:30:00 local time.
The victims were named as:
Family members (6)
Family members (4)
Summary
Sources (12) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (9) [ collapse]
-
Saad al Shabshol, aged one, killed along with several members of his family in an alleged Coalition strike on Raqqa, August 2nd 2017. (via SN4HR)
-
Abdul Rahman Al-Shibshoul (Abu Aboud Al-Sheikh Fahman), killed in an alleged Coalition airstrike on Raqqa, 2nd August 2017. (via Hmoud Abu AlAmir posted in Regards of Al - Raqqa Governorate)
-
Victim of an alleged Coalition airstrike on Raqqa, 2nd August 2017. (via Hmoud Abu AlAmir posted in Regards of Al - Raqqa Governorate)
-
Abdelrahman Ali Rahman Shabshoul (via Amnesty International)
-
AbdulSatter Ali Rahman Shabshoul (via Amnesty International)
-
Ibrahim Ali Rahman Shabshoul (via Amnesty International)
-
Noora Ali Rahman Shabshoul (via Amnesty International)
-
Saad Ali Rahman Shabshoul (via Amnesty International)
-
Zakaria Ali Rahman Shabshoul (via Amnesty International)
Geolocation notes (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 August 2nd-3rd: “Near Raqqah, 14 strikes engaged 10 ISIS tactical units and destroyed nine fighting positions, two vehicles, a supply cache, a VBIED, a mortar position, an ISIS UAS site, and a generator.” It additionally reported that “On Aug. 2, near Raqqah, Syria, 20 strikes engaged 11 ISIS tactical units and destroyed six fighting positions, two supply caches, a tactical vehicle, a tunnel, a VBIED factory, and a command and control node.”
‘Wednesday 2 August – Typhoons destroyed a Daesh strongpoint in Raqqa…Typhoons provided further close air support to the SDF on Wednesday 2 August; they found themselves coming under sustained heavy machine-gun and sniper fire from a building in Raqqa, but were able to pinpoint the Daesh position, allowing our aircraft to attack with a Paveway IV.’