Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Local sources reported that up to thirty civilians were killed and injured when Coalition airstrikes allegedly targeted several locations between al Soussa and al Dahra.
Most sources stated that the civilians were struck when they were trying to escape the village of al Soussa and move towards the al Dahra area in al Badia, rural Deir Ezzor. ISIS had reportedly allowed some civilians to flee.
According to Deir Ezzor 24, this happened when Coalition aircraft were “targeting several locations for Daesh in the town of Al-Soussa”. All sources identified the Coalition as the culprit.
Baladi News later noted that “dozens of civilians, including women and children” were killed and injured in the attack. This was reiterated by Syrian state media SANA, which added that “scores of families from al-Soussa have been fleeing the airstrikes of the Coalition that have been targeting their homes for days.”
Al Soussa Youth reported that one of the civilians killed was identified as Hamid Al Zaidan from al Habatra, whose recovered body had been brought to his family. According to the report, the other bodies “can’t be reached.” Two days after the event, both al Soussa Youth and Step News Agency reported a tally of 30 civilians killed, while mentioning that these were still not recovered from the site.
Two days after the incident, Mena Monitor News stated that the SDF “found eight bodies of civilians in the town of Soussa in the eastern suburb of Deir al-Ghazur, which were killed by an air strike by the international coalition coalition two days ago”.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (12) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (1) [ collapse]
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This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Body of Hamid Al Zaidan (via al Soussa Youth)
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention the villages of Al Baghouz and Al Soussa, for which the coordinates are: 34,528889, 40,9675
US-led Coalition Assessment:
Civilian casualty statements
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July 21, 2018, near al-Soussa, 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
The Coalition publicly reported that on July 21st 2018: “Near Abu Kamal, three strikes engaged one Daesh tactical unit, and destroyed three
Daesh vehicles and one Daesh line of communication."