Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Between 20 and 40 civilians including eight children and four women died in an alleged Coalition airstrike on the Al Awwal and Al Thaleth neighbourhood of Al Tabaqa, according to local media.
All sources attributed the incident to the Coalition, though there was some uncertainly on the date of the incident with a number of sources sources reporting deaths on May 12th from an incident that reportedly occurred “a few days ago”.
Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently, blaming the Coalition, put the death toll as high as 30. According to a report on May 13th, “a lot of buildings in the second and third neighborhoods have been completely destroyed, some of them still under the ruins of the population, especially in the third district where the number of martyrs is estimated at 40 civilian martyrs, not to mention the destruction of infrastructure.”
The article went on to claim that Kurdish forces “have imposed a curfew in the city, especially in the neighborhoods they have recently controlled. They are now transporting many bodies from houses and rubble and burying them away from the eyes of the media and cameras to say that there are no civilian casualties. The militias also moved the people who were present In neighborhoods to the village area.”
The journalist Mohab Nasser produced reports on May 12th, naming casualties which he said had been the result of a Coalition strike “a few days ago”. Airwars reached out to him to confirm the date of the incident and he told our researchers that “on On 7/5/2017 a warplane belonging to the Coalition attacked a 4-storey residential building in the third district, which led to the destruction of the building and the martyrdom of a number of residents, including three families. He named victims as:
Alo Hatem Jubran, 78 years
Safia Yassin, 77 years [female]
Ibrahim Alo Jubran, 41 years
Batoul Al-Sayed, 35 years [female]
Mohammed Ibrahim Jubran, 8 years
Fatima Ibrahim Jubran, 6 years
Maria Ibrahim Jubran, 1 year
Najah Musa Al-Abeisan, 18 years
Mohammed Ali Al-Aoran
Firas Bakir, 38 years
Wife of Firas Bakir
Mohamed Abdo Manan – also named in a previous event on May 12th in Tabaqa’s Third neighbourhood (listed below)
Salam Rasho, wife of Mohamed Abdo Manan – also named in a previous event on May 12th in Tabaqa’s Third neighbourhood (listed below)
The child Mohammed Abdo – also named in a previous event on May 12th in Tabaqa’s Third neighbourhood (listed below)
Khalil Ibrahim Jubran, 10 years
Abu Mustafa Al – Issa, 8 years
Ahmed Mustafa Al-Eissa, 7 years
Zakaria Mustafa Al – Issa, 14 years
Ziad Abdul Ghani Mullah Hashim, 43 years
He added that more victims were being found every day. Four further victims were named as:
Mohamed Hassan Awad
Mustapha Abdul Kafi al-Hussein
Mustafa Hussein
Khaled Areeb
Mohammad Haddad
RFS reported on May 14th the death of seven people – including women and children – from the Gebran family, in a Coalition strike which occurred “a few days ago”.
RBSS named further victims as:
George Bashoura
Abu Hassan al Ahdab – and his wife and two children
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the town of Tabaqah (الثورة), for which the generic coordinates are: 35.8295049, 38.5360909. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (44) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (2) [ collapse]
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Abi Zakariya al Issa, eight-years-old, died in an alleged Coalition raid on Tabaqa's Thurd neighbourhood on May 7th, according to Mohab Nasser.
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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The report contains insufficient information of the time location and details to assess its credibility.
Original strike reports
For May 6th-7th, the Coalition reported: “Near Tabqah, nine strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units; destroyed four fighting positions, two tactical vehicles, a vehicle; and suppressed an ISIS tactical unit.”