(Previous Incident Code: R4531)

On July 11th 2023, Syrian Civil Defense volunteer Abdul Basset Ahmed Abdel-Khalek was killed when Syrian regime and/or Russian forces reportedly struck a rescue vehicle in the vicinity of the city of Atareb, west of Aleppo.

Local sources including @SyriaCivilDefe and Rasd Syria News stated that Abdul was killed in a double tap attack by regime forces with a guided missile, while the team was inspecting places that were hit by artillery shelling.

The Syria Monitoring Network of Human Rights reported that the “Syrian regime forces are still continuing their violations against civilians in their areas of control, violating international laws and non-compliance with them, and violating the ceasefire agreement, and recently increased shelling by the Syrian regime forces on civilian-populated cities.”

A tweet from @jabalybaraa includes a video of the Civil Defense vehicle up in flames, which was attributed to a guided missile, which resulted in the death of the volunteer.

The majority of the sources attributed the missile attack to the Syrian regime, while @tAAprK80Nn3GKmd identified Russian forces as responsible.