(Previous Incident Code: R003)

The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported that “Allegedly Russian warplanes shelled Omar Bin Al Khattab Mosque in Jisr Al Shoughour city, killed one individual and destroyed the mosque completely.” Footage showed the mosque and surrounding houses to be severely damaged, with other reports placing the death toll higher.

Two videos were posted. In one, a rescuer tells the camera: “The man that was killed never carried a gun nor a stick. He’s an old man under the rubble, we’re pulling him out now.” Baladi News reported that five civilians were killed at the mosque.

Amnesty International later published its own findings, concluding that the strike “killed one civilian immediately, mortally wounded another and injured six more; Amnesty International has obtained the names of all eight individuals. According to one eyewitness interviewed by Amnesty International, there were no military casualties and no military targets in the vicinity, with the nearest checkpoint some 500m away.”

The international human rights group also noted: “On 1 October 2015 a Russian Ministry of Defence spokesperson stated that Russia’s air force had targeted IS infrastructure and had destroyed one such command post in Jisr al-Shughour. On 30 October, following the emergence of reports and images showing that the Omar Bin al-Khattab mosque had been destroyed, Colonel-General Andrey Kartapolov stated that such information was a “hoax” and presented a satellite image claiming that the mosque was still intact. However, the satellite image showed a different mosque, not the one destroyed in the attack.”