Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Thirteen named civilians including two children died in airstrikes and/or artillery shelling across multiple locations in Raqqa, according to local sources – though reports blamed both Coalition airstrikes and shelling by the SDF.
Al Raqqa Truth reported that 78 shells were dropped on the city while planes circled the skies. It added that Kurdish units positioned in the sugar factory targeted the area with artillery fire. The following locations were said to be have been struck.
Moua’wiya school
The automatic bakery area
Al Tousa’iya area west of the city
The barraks neighborhood
Rasheed Primary School
Al Diyafa Palace
Al Qouwatli road
Al-Moataz Street area next to Al-Hini Mosque
Area near the Directorate of Electricity
Area near the College of Education
Rumaila neighborhood,
February 23 Street
The Old Garage
The surroundings of the Faculty of Arts
The Silos roundabout
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently listed the following additional locations:
Engineers Syndicate
Al Karnak Tourist Hotel
Governor Palace
The Security quarter
House of police chief
Mohab Naser reported “air and artillery shelling by the coalition planes and SDF artillery targeting several neighbourhoods of the city”. He put the death toll at 10 with 20 more wounded. Masrawy also pointed to SDF artillery. According to the Smart News Network, “artillery of the US forces stationed in the north of the city, targeted neighborhoods with dozens of missiles and warplanes launched raids killing a civilian and wounding 17 others.”
Other sources, including the Syrian Network for Human Rights, attributed strikes to the Coalition – reporting five raids on different locations.
In its December 2017 civilian casualty report, the Coalition confirmed that “During a Coalition strike which destroyed an ISIS headquarters building it was assessed the three civilians were unintentionally killed.” However officials have refused to provide co-ordinates for the event, meaning that we cannot presently determine whether this was incident S763; S765; S766; S767; S768 or perhaps a new event.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (2)
Family members (2)
Family members (2)
Family members (3)
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the city of Multiple neighbourhoods (الرقة), for which the generic coordinates are: 35.953861, 39.005409. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (37) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (2) [ collapse]
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Mazen Khalil al-Husuni, killed in a raid on Raqqa, May 27th (via RBSS)
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 26th-27th, the Coalition reported: “Near Raqqah, 12 strikes engaged 11 ISIS tactical units; destroyed seven vehicles, five fighting positions, three tunnels, an ISIS headquarters and an ISIS staging area.“
For May 27th-28th, the Coalition reported: "Near Raqqah, 15 strikes engaged eight ISIS tactical units; destroyed six fighting positions, three ISIS headquarters, an ISIS staging area and a VBIED." For May 27th it added that "Near Raqqah, Syria, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit; destroyed a six fighting positions, an ISIS-held building and a weapons cache."