Airwars assessment
Between one and six civilians were reportedly wounded in suspected Russian airstrikes on Al Bab, east of Aleppo, in the night of February 2nd, 2020.
A number of sources, including @WZ4M93fVY0KeDJb, stated that six civilians had been injured. Among other sources, @jisrtv claimed instead that only one civilian had been injured. While Step Agency reported that “none of the injured are in a critical condition”, some twitter users reported that one of the injured civilians was indeed in a critical condition. No civilians were reported killed in the strike.
The strikes hit the Sheikh Dushal mosque and several residential buildings causing extensive damage, documented by both photo and video footage. Fires followed the alleged strikes, according to the White Helmets. The source provided a series of photographs of The White Helmets amongst the flames.
@jisrtv and other sources reported that a total of three missiles hit the residential neighborhoods. Citing the news website “Syria Call”, Aramme News claimed instead that Russian warplanes bombed the city with two vacuum missiles. The attack took place during the night.
The White Helmets explained this was the “first time Al Bab was attacked by Syrian-Russian alliance” since February 2017 when the area was “controlled by the Syrian National Army”. According to @pl24online, Al Bab is still in the within the “de-escalation” area agreed upon by Russia and Turkey.
AA reported that “A Russian warplane bombed the city of Al-Bab, which is located in the “Euphrates Shield” areas. According to the Syrian opposition’s Aviation Monitoring Center, the bombing took place at 01:30 at night, local time in Syria. (…) The Russian fighter that carried out the bombing took off from the Hmeimim base in Lattakia Governorate. (The source) pointed out that the Russian bombardment hit 3 points inside the center of Al-Bab city- (…). It is noteworthy that the front lines in the city of Al-Bab witnessed clashes yesterday between the forces of the Syrian regime and the forces of the Syrian National Army.”
Aramme News stated that “It is noteworthy that the Syrian National Army targeted the positions of the Assad militia southwest of the city of Al-Bab, killing and wounding a number of them, hours ago, in response to the attack launched by Russia on Idlib Governorate.”
The incident occured at 01:30:00 local time.