(Previous Incident Codes: R4010RS4257)

Four to seven people, including a woman, were reportedly killed and between ten and seventeen civilians, including two children, injured after alleged Russian or Syrian regime airstrikes on a market in the village of Ma’saran in the afternoon of December 17th, 2019, according to local sources. The day was referred to as “Black Tuesday” by the local media due to the severity of the major military escalation in Idlib on that day.

Most sources claimed seven civilians died, identifying the names as Abdul-Fattah Ibrahim Al-Abbas and his wife, Sobhia Al-Abdullah, Alaa Abdulsalam Al-Saghir, Abd al-Hakim al-Musa, Jalal Hassani and Duraid Al-Wali. Abdul Fattah Al-Abbas’ wife allegedly passed away hours after the attack due to a stroke. @zamanalwsl reported instead that the attack only caused three casualties. According to Smart News Agency, seventeen civilians were wounded, at least including two children, while @Shahbapress reported merely “about ten wounded civilians”.

While a majority of sources blame the Syrian regime for the attack, a number of sources attribute the strikes to both Russian and Syrian regime forces. Shaam News Network blamed Russian forces for the airstrike.

The attack consisted of three vacuum missiles fired by Syrian regime warplanes according to Orient News. According to @khaleedalkhteb, the belligerents attacked with both areal and ground bombardment.

A reporter of Idlib Media Center said that “the Syrian warplanes type ‘SU22’ targeted the town of Ma’saran, east of Idlib, and the target was direct to the popular market for the town, and the regime forces again targeted the town with heavy artillery that killed civilians”.

Usama Abo Ahmad mourned the death of his cousin posting on Facebook: “The martyr, God willing, my cousin, Jalal Khaled Hassani”.

Video footage shows the immediate aftermath of the incident, documenting several corpses being removed by civilians and White Helmets and the destruction of residential houses.