Geolocation
Airwars assessment
The Amnesty and Airwars’s joint April 2019 report “War in Raqqa: Rhetoric versus Reality” reported on an incident previously unidentified by Airwars.
An uncle and nephew were killed by an alleged Coalition airstrike which hit them whilst they were on a motorbike. The airstrike occurred between 3 and 4pm, and there were no reported injured civilians.
According to the brother of the victim, Abdelmin’am, in a testimony he gave to Amnesty researchers, “My brother was going on an errand with my sister’s son; they were riding a small motorbike and were both killed in a coalition strike. I don’t know what was the target, and they could not know either.”
In July 2019 the Coalition announced that it had assessed this allegation of civilian harm to be non-credible. Their monthly civilian casualty report noted: “After a review of available information it was assessed that no Coalition actions were conducted in the geographical area that corresponds to the report of civilian casualties.”
The incident occured between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm local time.
The victims were named as:
Family members (2)
Summary
Sources (1) [ collapse]
Geolocation notes
Location reported by Amnesty during field research “Jerdawi shop (sajjad shop) on Tal Abyad Street cross with Amassi Street.”
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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Oct. 11, 2017, in Raqqa, Syria, via Amnesty International report. After a review of available information it was assessed that no Coalition actions were conducted in the geographical area that corresponds to the report of civilian casualties.
Original strike reports
Near Ar Raqqah, 24 strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units, damaged nine fighting positions, destroyed 11 fighting positions, 12 vehicles, two communication nodes and one ISIS supply route.