Geolocation
Airwars assessment
A man was killed when the car he was in was hit by an airstrike, according to local sources.
RBSS reported that a man named Suleiman Al Ahmad al Ghannam was killed “after his injury in an air raid launched by the international coalition on the village of Lakta in the northern Raqqa countryside.” Al Natek offered an identical account, possibly taken from RBSS.
In a later statement issued by writers in Raqqa, it was reported that “Suleiman al Ghannam had volunteered to take people with his van from areas under the control of Kurdish forces to the main road that connects Raqqa to Tal Abiyad. The front of his van was targeted by a missile from a warplane which hit the front of the vehicle, killing all sitting in the front while passengers sitting in the back including women and children survived.”
The statement – signed by more than 100 writers and journalists from the Raqqa area – called on the Coalition to ‘stop targeting civilians in the province of Raqqa and in all other areas, and open transparent investigation incidents into shelling of civilian sites by the international coalition and to hold accountable anyone found responsible.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Lakta (لقطة), for which the generic coordinates are: 36.6265496, 38.9509964. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (5) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (3) [ collapse]
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Suleiman Al Ahmad al Ghannam (via RBSS)
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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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After a review of available information it was assessed that no Coalition strikes were conducted in the geographical area of the reported civilian casualties.
Original strike reports
For November 2nd-3rd, the Coalition reported “Near Ar Raqqah, two strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an oil pump jack and a vehicle.”