Investigations

Airstrikes on two markets, Industry City and two Civil Defense Centers in Idlib

October 12, 2020

Investigation reveals airstrikes hit Civil Defense centers, Industry City and city markets in the Idlib governorate killing and injuring civilians

Print Article

Introduction

Satellite imagery taken from Google Earth Pro with the locations of the incidents.

On January 15, 2020, civilians suffered from one of the bloodiest days of the Idlib offensive. According to the Syrian Civil Defense, around 28 areas were hit in the province by 60 airstrikes including 28 barrel bombs strikes. The Civil Defense claims that this is in addition to 243 ground artillery attacks on the towns in the province. From these airstrikes and ground attacks, according to the Civil Defense, over 20 civilians were killed, 2 of which were children and 1 a Civil Defense volunteer. The first responders group additionally reported that about 82 civilians were injured. Those wounded include 22 children, 6 women, and 2 Civil Defense volunteers.

These brutal strikes came on the third day of an armistice announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The armistice was set to begin at midnight on January 12 in agreement with Turkish forces. Although respected on January 12 and 13, the armistice was short lived as airstrikes on Idlib started again on January 14. According to the Civil Defense, the January 14 air campaign targeted 4 areas with 10 airstrikes. With the armistice broken, the most intense bombardment occurred on January 15. In this investigation, Syrian Archive examines the January 15 airstrikes on Al Hal Market and Industry City in Idlib city, the Popular Market in Ariha, and two Civil Defense centers in the villages of Shannan and Bzabour.

Methodology

Syrian Archive conducted an investigation into the incidents, consisting of three components:

A local investigations team collected 8 testimonies from eye-witnesses or those who witnessed the immediate aftermath of some of the airstrikes and took photographs and videos of some of the impact sites after the strike;
Secured, analysed, and verified 79 videos and images uploaded to social media networks purportedly showing the incidents;
Analysed satellite imagery showing the locations after the incident as well as flight observation data revealing the planes over or near the towns at the purported time of the strike.

The combined analysis of these sources has culminated in the present investigation report. Complementing each other, they provide information regarding the incidents’ date and time, location, casualties, and extent of damage.

Examining all information available on the strike, the investigations team developed an understanding of the incident and potential perpetrators.

For more details on Syrian Archive’s methodology, please see our site.

Incident 1: Industry City and Al Hal Market in Idlib

Place of Incident: Idlib city
Location Hit: Al Hal Market and Industry City
Date: 15 January 2020
Time: Around 14:04
Type of Incident: Airstrike
Type of Munition: N/A
Killed: 22 civilians killed including 2 children and a Civil Defense volunteer
Injured: 65 civilians injured
Potentially Responsible: A MiG-23 warplane possibly belonging to the Syrian Air Force

Background on Al Hal Market and Industry City

Satellite imagery taken from Google Earth Pro showing the location of Al Hal Market and Industry City in Idlib city.

The Al Hal Market and Industry City are located near the Mihrab roundabout in northeastern Idlib city. The areas in and around the Industry City and Al Hal market are residential and neighbor Saraqib Highway. This area is considered by residents as a densely populated and crowded district of the city because of its proximity to the main road, in addition to housing the Industry City, Al Hal Market, the Idlib National Hospital and Idlib Museum. Furthermore, this district, according to residents and Civil Defense members interviewed by Syrian Archive’s investigations team on the ground, is solely inhabited by civilians and is a commercial area with no military headquarters or soldiers nearby.

A geolocation of a video uploaded by the Syrian Civil Defense taken at the Al Hal Market. The video shows the Civil Defense’s rescue efforts.

What Happened (and When)?

A still from a video taken by the investigations team of the damage to homes and shops in Industry City.

On January 15, 2020 at around 14:04, airstrikes hit Al Hal Market and Industry City in Idlib city killing 22 civilians and injuring 65 others.

Using shadows featured in the variety of open source content showing the aftermath of the strike, Syrian Archive was able to confirm the time of the incident as between 14:00 to 15:00 on January 15, 2020. The shadows featured in a Civil Defense video, indicated in the red box above, match the sun’s position at around 14:00 to 15:00 as shown in the SunCalc tool.

Syrian Archive’s investigations team on the ground in Idlib spoke with witnesses. Saeed Abdul Hamid Khattab, a volunteer for the Civil Defense, as well as one other witness both described the Civil Defense teams as arriving minutes after the strike, which they claim occurred at 14:04. Khattab describes seeing several burned bodies, as well as body parts, scattered on the ground of the market. According to Khattab, some of the bodies of those killed included children who were working in the market and Industry City that day. Khattab estimated he saw around 15 killed civilians and 30 others injured at the impact site in what he described as a “tragic event.”

Satellite imagery from Digital Globe of Al Hal Market before and after the incident showing the damage to the area.

Posts on social media corroborate Khattab’s estimate of the strike’s time. Around the time of the strike at 14:05, the Facebook page the Coordination of the Syrian Revolution in the City of Idlib posted an image of a smoke plume allegedly from the airstrike in addition to other images posted later of the damage to the market. At 14:07 and around 14:20, a number of other Facebook users and pages posted alerting of a MiG-23 plane targeting the city of Idlib.

Additionally confirming the time and devastation of this strike, Abu Al Zein, the owner of a store in Industry City who survived the airstrikes, described the scene of the incident as a “horror” in an interview with the investigations team. Directly after the strike, Al Zein described seeing seven bodies in addition to body parts scattered around the market and dozens wounded from the strike. Detailing the incident as a “horrific massacre,” Al Zein spoke of failed attempts to save those injured while waiting for the Civil Defense to arrive. Of the injured, Al Zein recalled Samir Kassar, “the owner of a car repair shop,” and Ahmed Aswad, in addition to many people that choked on the smoke from the strike’s subsequent fires. Al Zein also spoke of a child (12 years old) and a woman who, while coughing, asked him for water.

An image taken by the investigations team days after the strike showing the damage to shops and homes in Industry City.

Alongside Al Zein, Civil Defense volunteer Mazen Abu Ahmed, interviewed by the investigations team, confirmed the time of the strike as at 14:04 and reported a MiG-23 warplane as responsible for hitting the market and the surrounding residential areas. Arriving moments after the incident occurred, Ahmed emphasized the destruction, fires, and number killed and injured from the airstrike. He noted that those injured were transported to a variety of hospitals in the area.

Videos and images posted on social media show the rescue efforts by first responders. The Syrian Civil Defense posted a number of videos showing volunteers extinguishing fires and rescuing those stuck under rubble. Videos from local Facebook pages additionally show the Civil Defense’s search and rescue efforts.

image from the Coordination of the Syrian Revolution in the City of Idlib

image from Hisham S Assaf

image from Baladi News

Images from the Coordination of the Syrian Revolution in the City of Idlib Facebook page, Facebook user Hisham S Assaf, and Baladi News showing the aftermath of the airstrike.

Moreover, images and videos posted online show the severe damage to Al Hal Market and Industry City matching statements from witnesses interviewed by the investigations team. Videos from user Al Jasim Omar and Baladi News for example show destroyed homes and shops as well as cars on fire from the strike.

Images taken by the investigations team days after the strike of Al Hal Market and Industry City. In the background of some images is the Idlib Museum, which was slightly damaged from the strike. The majority of the rubble from the blast had been removed when the pictures were taken.

Corroborating social media posts and other witness statements, Nurse Abdul Mullah Hallaj, working at Idlib Central Hospital the day of the incident, described in an interview with the investigations team hearing the sound of two powerful explosions and the ambulance team leaving to the location of the blasts. Hallaj described the ambulance teams arriving back at the hospital carrying the bodies of those killed and injured. In detail, Hallaj noted that the hospital received 39 patients (one of whom died on arrival), including 15 children and 3 women. Arriving with both minor and major injuries, the patients, according to Hallaj, were treated based upon the severity of their injuries. Those with relatively minor injuries were transferred to other hospitals.

In Idlib Central Hospital, Abu Hassan, originally from Hama and the father of two children (Ahmed and Aisha), described the day of the strike and his children’s injuries to the investigations team. On the afternoon of the incident, Abu Hassan describes sending his kids to the market to buy some necessities. Minutes after sending them, he told the investigations team he heard two explosions. When he ran out of the house, he found Ahmed and Aisha injured near their home. Hassan and a Civil Defense volunteer took the children to the hospital. According to Muawiyah, a case worker with the Syrian American Medical Society, Ahmed suffered from an open forearm fracture and a loss of muscle and flesh in his arms. Aisha suffered from neurological and vascular injuries and underwent surgery directly after the strike.

Aisha

Ahmed

Stills from videos taken by the investigations team of Aisha and Ahmed, children injured in the strike on Al Hal Market and Industry City.

Videos filmed by the investigation team, with the consent of Abu Hassan and his children, show the injuries Ahmed and Aisha sustained from the strike. Talking with the investigations team, Aisha said that she was with her brother buying necessities for her father when the strike hit. She described her body being thrown by the explosion and no longer seeing anything until a Civil Defense volunteer arrived, picked her up, and took her to the hospital.

Pictures taken by the investigations team showing the rubble on and damage to houses near the market and Industry City.

A final interview was conducted by the investigations team with Abu Farid, a shop owner in Idlib’s Industry City. Farid recounted being shocked by the strike’s explosions. He emphasized that many were killed as well as wounded including himself. The explosion and shrapnel from the strike injured his shoulder. He described cars exploding shortly after the strike destroying shops and burning the bodies of already dead civilians.

Further confirming the strike, the Civil Defense posted videos from the incident site showing the rescue effort, those killed or injured by the strike, the effort to rescue a child, and a funeral for the Civil Defense volunteer Mohammed Shadi Asaad who died in the strike. Moreover, Al Durar Al Shamiya Network, STEP News, the Idlib Heath Directorate, The New Arab, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, and Al Jazeera published statements and articles confirming the incident.

Deaths and Injuries

 A still from a video posted by Ahmed Rahhal of white bags with the bodies of those killed by the strike.

Videos posted by the Idlib Media Center and Ahmed Rahhal YouTube channels show the inside of the National Hospital in Idlib after the strike. In the videos, bodies are shown in the hospital’s corridors with staff and volunteers removing the clothes of those dead and placing their bodies in bags. Alongside the videos showing the recovered bodies of those killed, images, such as that posted by Civil Defense volunteer Ammar Al Dowd, show the injuries sustained by civilians and first responders.

The investigations team visited the hospitals that received victims of the strike verifying records of those killed. These hospital records were corroborated and matched with lists on Facebook of the names and ages of those injured and killed. On January 17, 2020, the Syrian Civil Defense reported that the number of civilians killed in the airstrike on Al Hal Market and Industry City rose to 21. The total killed increased again after the attack, when a critically injured patient died, bringing the total of those killed to 22. 65 civilians in total were wounded in the strike, including 22 children, 6 women, and 2 Civil Defense volunteers, after 3 died while in critical condition. Some of the names of those killed were corroborated with other open sources.

Killed

Name
Abdul Qadir Rajab
Maher Sheikhouni
Samer Ahmed Shaar
Mohammed Shadi Al Asaad
Ali Mohammed Al Atrash
Omar Naas
Alaa Al Sheikh Hassan
Omar Jawdat Zeidan
Zakariya Laala
Ahmed Al Zain
Anadan Sheikhouni
Farouq Afarah
Abu Al Laith Al Halfawi
Obaida Ibrahim Quteia
Mohammed Shadi Naamah
Ahmed Mohammed Aswad
Zakaria Bin Safwan Zakzak
Abdel Karim Asaad Harmoush
Bakir Jasim Bakir
Mustafa Ziyad Hafserjawi
Khalid Abdel Wahab Al Kahil
Unidentified Person

Flight Data Analysis

To further verify the incident, Syrian Archive cross-referenced information from open sources and pictures and videos taken by the investigations team with flight observation data from a spotter organization, which documents sightings of warplanes by partner observers in cities throughout Syria. These observers collect data about the aircrafts such as the type of plane and the direction the plane is flying. Although there may be misidentifications of aircraft in the flight data, additional information such as witness statements and social media posts can corroborate the identified aircraft and its course. Data for flights occurring briefly before, during, and after the time of the incident around 14:04 near Idlib city was analyzed.

Witnesses and open sources outlined above claimed a MiG-23 warplane, commonly used by the Syrian Air Force, was responsible for the strike on Al Hal Market and Industry City. Observation data shows a MiG-23 plane taking off north towards Idlib from Hama Military Airbase (91 km south of Idlib city) at 13:26 and 13:57. Shortly thereafter at 13:59, another MiG-23 warplane is spotted flying northeast over the town of Heish (43 km south of Idlib city) in the direction of the incident site. 11 km north of Heish, a MiG-23 was also spotted at 14:01 flying north over Maaret Al Numan (30 km south of Idlib city). At 14:02 and 14:03, MiG-23 warplanes were spotted flying northwest towards Idlib city over Khan Al Sobol (23 km south of Idlib city), Saraqib (16 km east of Idlib city), and Sarmin (9 km east of Idlib city). Lastly at 14:04, the reported and estimated time of the strike, a MiG-23 warplane was spotted circling over Idlib city. The common practice of circling by war zone aircrafts featured in this data set generally indicates a target acquisition and/or preparation for an imminent strike. This data corroborates open source information and witness testimony of the strike having occurred at or around 14:04 and conducted possibly by the Syrian Air Force.

Map showing the locations and direction of MiG-23 warplanes before and at the time of the strike.

There is no information available indicating that one of the observed aircraft was directly involved in the strike detailed above. However, the presence of MiG-23 warplanes above Idlib city and neighboring towns at or around the time of the strike further confirms the purported times the missile hit Al Hal Market and Industry City as well as indicates the Syrian government as a party potentially responsible for the strike.

Summary

Around 14:04 on January 15, 2020, Industry City and Al Hal Market in Idlib city was hit by an airstrike. It destroyed a number of homes and shops in the area as well as killed 22 civilians and injured 65 others.

Incident 2: Popular Market in Ariha

Place of Incident: Idlib: Ariha
Locations Hit: Popular Market and The Martyr Abdul Hamid Ghannimi School
Date: 15 January 2020
Time: Around 13:00
Type of Incident: Airstrike
Type of Munition: N/A
Killed: None
Injured: 7 civilians
Potentially Responsible: A government light ground attack warplane (either a Yak 130 or L-39 belonging to the Syrian government) or Su-24 warplane possibly belonging to the Syrian Air Force

Background on Ariha

Satellite Imagery from Google Earth Pro of Ariha, the Martyr Abdul Hamid Al Ghanimi School and the airstrike’s impact site with the market area outlined in blue.

Ariha is a medium-sized town located around 13 km south of Idlib. The town sits on the M4 Highway, which runs from Saraqib through Jisr Al Shughur to Latakia on the western coast.