Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Between 12 and 18 civilians including eight children and four women – reportedly from the same family – died and dozens more were injured in an Coalition airstrike on the Al Hashem area north of Raqqa city, local media reported.
Euphrates Post said that 12 non-combatants were killed in the Coalition strike, most of whom were displaced from Raqqa’s Al Mashlab neighbourhood. The Syrian Network for Human Rights put the number killed at 13 including eight children and four women, saying that the Coalition was responsible.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the death toll rose to 15, of which there were five children and women. Again, the source blamed Coalition jets.
Ahmad al Shibli reported “a coalition massacre in raid on a home in Bi’r al Hashem”.
Al Ragga Truth reported that 15 members of the al Hamoud family died in the strike.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (4)
Family members (3)
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Bir Al Hashem (بئر الهشم), for which the generic coordinates are: 36.002222, 38.8875. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (29) [ collapse]
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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No Coalition strikes were conducted on that day in the geographic area of the reported civilian casualties. The closest strike to the report of possible civilian casualties was 5 km away
Original strike reports
For May 10th-11th, the Coalition reported: “Near Raqqah, 11 strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units; destroyed seven vehicles, three fighting positions, an ISIS barge, a VBIED factory, a weapons storage facility; and damaged two ISIS supply routes.” It later added that “Additionally, 13 strikes were conducted in Syria and Iraq on May 10th that closed within the last 24 hours. Near Raqqah, Syria, seven strikes engaged seven ISIS tactical units and destroyed 12 fighting positions, an ISIS headquarters, a command and control node, a supply cache, an ISIS staging area, a tactical vehicle, and a vehicle.”
For May 11th-12th. “Near Raqqah, eight strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed four fighting positions, three VBIEDs, two ISIS oil storage tanks, two ISIS oil stills, two excavators, a front-end loader, an IED, and an ISIS staging area.” It later added that “Additionally, six strikes were conducted in Syria on May 11th that closed within the last 24 hours…. Near Raqqah, five strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit; destroyed two VBIEDs, a fighting position, a weapons cache, a vehicle; and damaged two ISIS supply routes and a bridge.”
‘Thursday 11 May – Typhoons attacked three targets in eastern Syria, as well as a truck-bomb factory north-west of Raqqa. Tornados also struck six times in Mosul…On Thursday 11 May, a pair of Typhoons, armed with Paveway IVs, destroyed a truck-bomb staging area some fifteen miles north-west of Raqqa, while another pair supported the SDF in eastern Syria, hitting a mortar team and two Daesh-held buildings near Al Ulwah. The same day, two flights of Tornados patrolled over Mosul, using Brimstone missiles against two Daesh positions very close to Iraqi troops. A further Paveway IV eliminated a mortar in a courtyard, and three more Paveways cratered roads along which Daesh might have tried to move truck-bombs along.’