Geolocation
Airwars assessment
One child was killed by artillery shelling of Raqqa, according to multiple local sources.
Airwars understands that only the Coalition has access to artillery in Raqqa
The incident was first reported on August 4, 2017 at 4:50 pm by تنسيقية الثورة في مدينة تدم on Facebook .
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident only mention unnamed neighbourhoods in the city of Raqqa (الرقة), for which the coordinates are: 35.9505639, 39.0094148. Due to limited information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further
Summary
Sources (4) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (1) [ collapse]
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Yasser Abbas Hussein al-Alo, killed in an alleged Coalition strike on Raqqa, August 2nd 2017. (via Ahmad Al Shbli)
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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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.’