Geolocation
Airwars assessment
In a major civilian casualty incident, between ten and 18 civilians were killed, including 13 children, and up to 40 more people were injured by air and/or artillery strikes targeting the town of Ma’arbo in the southern countryside of Idlib, according to local media.
Activist Ayman al-Hussein told ARA News that “at least ten civilians from one family were killed in aerial and missile bombardment by Syrian regime forced stationed at the Bridej checkpoint in the northern Hama.”
In addition to the human cost, media activists alleged that the missiles were aimed directly at the houses in the village and destroyed many civilian homes. Following the attack, Syrian Civil Defence were at the scene digging victims from the rubble in order to transport the injured to the closest field hospital in the neighbouring village of Tirmala.
Very graphic images posted by @SyriaCivilDefe and @radwanalbash showed children that had been crushed by the rubble and brutally injured from the airstrike.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, witnesses were unable to determine if the warplanes belonged to the Syrian regime or Russia. However, some local sources were able to attribute blame to either the regime of Russia, with @rola1khatib identifying Syrian regime planes as responsible and @almasar_online blaming Russian planes.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Ma’arbo (معربو), for which the generic coordinates are: 32.546305, 36.426244. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (23) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (5) [ collapse]
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This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
The body of a child under the rubble in the aftermath of an alleged Russian and Syrian regime raid on Ma'arbo, 8th November 2016. (via @SyriaCivilDefe) -
The body of a civilian casualty in the aftermath of an alleged Russian and Syrian regime raid on Ma'arbo, 8th November 2016. (via @radwanalbash)
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This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
The body of a civilian casualty in the aftermath of an alleged Russian and Syrian regime raid on Ma'arbo, 8th November 2016. (via @radwanalbash) -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
The body of a civilian casualty with exposed organs in the aftermath of an alleged Russian and Syrian regime raid on Ma'arbo, 8th November 2016. (via @radwanalbash) -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
The body of a civilian casualty in the aftermath of an alleged Russian and Syrian regime raid on Ma'arbo, 8th November 2016. (via @radwanalbash)
Russian Military Assessment:
Original strike reports
Russia has not reported any specific strikes between November 1st – 30th 2016.
On 6 January 2017, Russia, however, reported: “Since November 8, 2016, the aircraft carrier group of the Northern Fleet consisting of the heavy aircraft carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, the heavy nuclear missile cruiser Pyotr Velikiy, the large ASW ship Severomorsk, as well as auxiliary vessels of the Black Sea Fleet, has been fulfilling counterterrorist missions on the territory of Syria”, adding that ”in the course of two months of their participation in the combat actions, naval aviation pilots have carried out 420 combat sorties, 117 of them were night ones”.