Incident Code
Incident Code
Incident Date
Location
Geolocation
Geolocation
Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Code: S1604)
According to local sources, up to eight civilians including four children and two women were killed in a Coalition airstrike on the town of Al Sha’afa.
Most sources reported that 17 people were killed overall, including eight civilians and nine or more ISIS fighters. The Syrian Network for Human Rights added that four children and two women were among the eight civilians who perished. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was the only source stating that 14 ISIS fighters were killed.
According to Al Soussa Youth, the casualties were a result of multiple “international Coalition air raids targeted the town of Al-Sha’afa”. According to the outlet, the first raid was near a car wash. Later, eleven bodies were recovered from the site, four of them civilians.
The second attack targeted a house in the al Hassya area, reportedly killing 4 civilians. The third raid targeted a four-wheel drive vehicle at an intersection at Ramtha. Another attack targeted an ISIS vehicle “near the orchard”. Syria News quoted Syrian state media SANA as identifying the bombed sites as “the Rafa’a al-Sattam complex, the fence complex, the Saeed al-Tawfeh al-Hazza and al-Husayya areas”.
Sound and Picture reported that in addition to the eight civilians that were killed, 14 others were injured in the attack.
According to a correspondent for Radio al Kul, Coalition aircraft dropped leaflets on the “areas under the control of the organization [ISIS] in the eastern countryside of Deir Al-Zour, calling on it to withdraw from the area.”
In correspondence with Airwars, Deir Ezzor 24 provided a list of what it said were eight unidentified civilian victims – including 4 boys, 2 women and an adult male – in “raids by fixed wing aircraft belonging to the international coalition on the town of Sha’afa”.
In September 2019 the Coalition announced that it had classed this allegation of civilian harm as non-credible. Their monthly civilian harm report noted, “After a review of all available records it was determined that, more likely than not, civilian casualties did not occur as a result of a Coalition action.”
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention that the alleged Coalition airstrike targeted a car wash and a house in the area of Hassia (الحصية) in the town of Al-Sha’afa, for which the coordinates are: 34.614722, 40.933056. Other areas mentioned in Al Sha’afa include “the complex of spring Sattam, junction fence and Bustan Saeed Al-Hatzah”