Geolocation
Airwars assessment
One or two civilians died in an alleged Coalition airstrike on Al-Sahel, according to local media.
Baladi, Syrianpc and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights all blamed the Coalition for the death of one non-combatant.
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered named a victim as Ahmad Mustafa Al-Haji Al-Hamid but didn’t say who was responsible for his death.
Raqqa24 reported that “two civilians were killed and others were wounded by coalition aircraft bombing the town of Al-Sahl in rural Raqqa yesterday evening.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Al Sahel (السحل), for which the generic coordinates are: 35.87441, 38.63985. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (6) [ 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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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
For May 12th-13th the Coalition reported: “Near Raqqah, five strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed two fighting positions, a front-end loader, an ISIS crane, and a house-born improvised explosive device.”