Geolocation
Airwars assessment
A house in the town of Al Soussa was struck by what sources described variously as a drone strike, airstrikes, artillery shelling, a rocket or a rocket-propelled grenade, killing two named brothers. Three of their other brothers were reported injured.
Although one source implied the brothers were members of ISIS, this was not mentioned by any other source. Mena-Monitor and Sham-FM specifically referred to the deaths of two civilians.
Some sources blamed the Coalition, while others blamed SDF.
Although it was alleged that SDF artillery had been responsible for the casualties, Airwars understands that only the US-led Coalition had access to field artillery at the time. This is therefore a potential Coalition civilian harm event.
In its December 2020 monthly civilian casualty report, the Coalition assessed this event as ‘non credible’, claiming that “The allegation provided insufficient detail to identify a specific date, time, or location to assess its credibility.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (5)
Summary
Sources (13) [ collapse]
US-led Coalition Assessment:
Civilian casualty statements
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Jan. 13, 2019, in al Soussa, Syria, via Airwars report. The allegation provided insufficient detail to identify a specific date, time, or location to assess its credibility. 3265/CS1887 37SFU805225
Original strike reports
Between Jan. 13 - 26, 2019, CJTF-OIR conducted 645 strikes consisting of 1,360 engagements in Syria, and conducted nine strikes consisting of 12 engagements in Iraq.
In Syria, 645 strikes engaged 394 ISIS tactical units, and destroyed 244 fighting positions, 172 supply routes, 85 staging areas, 21 vehicles, 17 buildings, 15 vehicle borne improvised explosive devices, 14 mortar launching sites, 13 manufacturing facilities for improvised explosive devices, 12 command and control nodes, nine tunnels, eight weapons catches, seven pieces of engineering equipment, five launching sites for unmanned aircraft systems, two weapons storage facilities, two mortar tubes, two improvised explosive devices, one unmanned aircraft system, one machine gun, one logistic node and one check point.