Airwars assessment
Three civilians were credibly reported injured as a result of British strikes on a military compound West of the city of Homs “in the early hours of Saturday”.
The United States, France and the US declared that they had participated in the strikes in Damascus and Homs. In its own regular strike reports the Coalition made no mention of either action – suggesting that they may have been unilateral attacks.
A second location (34.695000, 36.536944) was also suggested by Airwars geolocators after studying published imagery relating to the event.
A tweet by @Syriahr and a report by Dostor News, quoting the state-run news agency SANA, reported that “rockets targeted army warehouses” which were either deflected or missed their target. The subsequent explosion of one missile allegedly “led to the injury of three people”.
In an Assad government statement, clipped by BBC Arabic, the defense ministry spokesperson also makes mention of the three civilians wounded in the Homs strike.
Sky News shared aerial footage of the “Shinshar chemical weapon facility” before and after it was targeted by the airstrike. Euphrates Post shared similar footage, and stated that the military compound was “completely destroyed”.
The incident occured around dawn.
Summary
Sources (10) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (4) [ collapse]
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the Him Shanshar military installation: at (1) 34.695000, 36.536944 and (2) 34.681389, 36.466111. The Euphrates Post and Sky News published satellite imagery of the destruction, see above
US-led Coalition Assessment:
Civilian casualty statements
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April 13, 2018, near Homs, Syria, via Airwars. 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 April 13th, General Joseph F. Dunford stated during a press conference that “At 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, French, British and U.S. forces struck targets in Syria in support of President Trump’s objective to deter the future use of chemical weapons. Our forces were integrated throughout the planning and execution of the operation. […] The second target was a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs. We assessed that this was the primary location of Syrian sarin and precursor production equipment.