At 1930 Syrian time on 19 September, a Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy was attacked. Around 20 civilians were killed, including Omar Barakat, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent’s director in Urum al-Kubra. Eighteen trucks containing aid were destroyed. The Syrian Red Crescent called it a “
flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law.” The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated that it did not know the location of the convoy,
claiming:
“
Around 13:40 Moscow time (10:40 GMT) the aid convoy successfully reached the destination. The Russian side did not monitor the convoy after this and its movements were only known by the militants who were in control of the area…
We have closely studied the video footage from where the incident took place and we did not find any signs of any ammunition having hit the convoy. There are no craters, while the vehicles have their chassis intact and they have not been severely damaged, which would have been the case from an airstrike. All of the video footage demonstrates that the convoy caught fire”.
This investigation will use open source techniques to demonstrate that the Russian MoD and Syrian Government knew the location of the convoy. It will also show that it was not a fire that destroyed the convoy, but a sustained attack by air assets.
Context
Location
The location of this attack is at a warehouse along Highway 60, approximately 15 km west of Aleppo and 1 km to the east of Urem al-Kubrah (36°09′05.7″N 36°58′03.9″E):
Fig 1 –
General Location, including Urem al-Kubrah on the left of the image
Fig 2 – Close up of warehouse complex – Highway 60 runs from bottom left to top right
Fig 3. East side of Compound.
Source.
Fig 4. North side of compound.
Source.
Time
The incident took place on the evening of the 19th September, as confirmed by multiple sources including the Syrian Red Crescent. In
Video 1, we see a member of the White Helmets, a Syrian Civil Defence organisation, state the time and date of the attack as “19th September 2016… in the evening, 7:30 o’clock”. The White Helmets officially mark it as 1912 Syrian Time in the Youtube
video description. Neither the Syrian nor Russian governments have disputed the timeframe for when the attack took place, thus the 7-7:30pm time for this attack seems most reasonable.
Who knew about the convoy?
According to the UN Deputy Spokesperson for the Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke, the
UN had received permission for delivering aid from the Syrian Government, and the Under-Secretary-General Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, states that the convoy’s location was “marked & coordinates known”.
We also know that the convoy was tracked by a Russian drone earlier in the day, which was confirmed by Ministry of Defense spokesperson Igor Konashenkov.
He stated:
“
Around 13:40 Moscow time (10:40 GMT) the aid convoy successfully reached the destination. The Russian side did not monitor the convoy after this and its movements were only known by the militants who were in control of the area”
This statement makes it clear that the Russian MoD knew the location of the convoy and the warehouse. However, a comparison of pictures from the aftermath of the attack and the drone feed clearly show that the convoy did not move on: it was attacked at the location that the Russian MoD was monitoring. The
drone feed ends before the darkness falls and the attack takes place. In the figure below, the blue arrows mark the aid trucks, and the remaining boxes and lines are the same reference markers as seen in Figure 2 (which appears again below), showing that the Russian drone was monitoring the same location that was later attacked.
Fig 6 – Top left: Satellite imagery of location captured by Russian drone Top right: Shot from Russian drone of same location, with aid trucks present. Bottom: Shot from Russian drone of same location, with aid trucks highlighted with blue arrows. Other markings consistent with Fig 2 (see below).
Source, at 1:00:09.
Fig 2 – Close up of warehouse complex – Highway 60 runs from bottom left to top right
What happened during the attack?
The Russian MoD attempted to downplay the attack and link it to the rebels, with spokesman Igor Konashenkov claiming that it “
strangely happened almost at exactly the same time as militants started a large-scale offensive on Aleppo” He goes on to say:
“
We have closely studied the video footage from where the incident took place and we did not find any signs of any ammunition having hit the convoy. There are no craters, while the vehicles have their chassis intact and they have not been severely damaged, which would have been the case from an airstrike… All of the video footage demonstrates that the convoy caught fire.”
The evidence shown in the multiple videos and photographs of the aftermath demonstrate that Konashenkov’s statement is simply not true:
Fig 7 – Crater seen in road immediately outside compound.
Source
Fig 8 – Debris found in crater shown in Fig 7.
Source
Fig 8a – Conflict Intelligence Team Comparison of debris shown in Fig. 7 and unexploded barrel bomb from Hama province.
Source
Fig 9 – Heavy damage to building. Yellow circle shows destroyed wall.
Source
Fig 10 – View from same damaged building. Yellow circle shows destroyed wall. From the AFP (
source)
Fig 11 – Example of fragmentation outside compound.
Image from Aleppo Media Center.
Fig 11a: Note the road in Fig. 11 and here. This image was taken in the same location, except almost exactly 180 degrees in the other direction. It clearly shows a repaired crater in the road, the same crater as shown in Fig. 7.
Image from Aleppo Media Center.
Fig 12 -Example of fragmentation on car inside compound.
Source
Fig 13 – Example of crater with fragmentation visible in cardboard boxes to rear.
Image from Aleppo Media Center.
Fig 13a – Conflict Intelligence Team comparison of debris found in crater shown in Fig 13 and an OFAB 250-270.
Source
These pictures show a large amount of fragmentation for a fire, and Figures 9 & 10 show a level of destruction that is much more consistent with a powerful explosion. Although something like a gas cylinder could cause some blast and fragmentation, the level of damage show here, and in a multitude of other photos and videos, indicates something much more powerful.
Video and audio analysis
A White Helmet at the scene of the attacks makes two different claims. In the
Video 1 he claims: “The regime helicopter targeted this place with four barrels”. In
Video 2 the same man claims: “
Regime helicopters targeted… with eight barrel bombs” and then states that the “regime targeted this place with cluster bombs two times… with C-5 [presumably referring to S-5 air-to-ground missiles] and with bullets”. Although he may be referring to information he has just received, there is no immediate evidence that the latter claim is correct. However, the claims of barrel bombs and helicopters is consistent, especially examining the crater and debris in Figures 7 & 8. Furthermore, the object–likely a bomb’s tail fin– identified in Fig 13a appears to be from an OFAB 250-270, a piece of ordnance delivered from the air by jets.
There is also a video which claims to show the strike itself, posted by “Shattering News” and bearing the watermark of Aleppo24, a pro-rebel news outlet. It is titled
“Russian and Regime Airstrike destroys UN aid trucks sending supplies into “Aurem”-near Aleppo”. Although the provenance of the source is difficult to confirm, the contents of the video are consistent with the description of the strike given by the White Helmet. We can understand incident better with the included audio and visual evidence.
Audio evidence [See Appendix A below for complete transcript.]
- The cameraman states that Regime forces have “targeted UN aid trucks in Aurem, on 19th of September 2016”, referring to Urem Al-Kubra, close to the location of the incident.
- Those involved in the chaotic scenes in the middle of the video, apparently treating or evacuating casualties, are clearly terrified at the prospect of an airstrike and keep mentioning it as a possibility. Indeed, towards the end of this section, someone calls for everybody to evacuate as “there is an airstrike coming”.
- The sound of jet engines is clear at both the very beginning of the video and at 02:45. In both incidents large explosions follow immediately after.
Visual evidence
- Location: The video, taken from some distance away, appears to show a distinctive warehouse, with a roof including a step, as well as gaps at the base, allowing the light from the explosions to shine through (see Fig. 14). In Fig. 15 this warehouse is identifiable to the north of the area where the trucks are parked.
Fig. 14: The location of the aid convoy is within purple box. The large warehouse is shown to the right, its distinctive roof marked in green and the gaps in the structure marked by the red box.
Fig. 15: Birds-eye view of the location of the incident. It uses the same markings as Fig. 14
The weapons used lead to big explosions that can clearly be heard and seen. In Figure 14, the scale of the attack is made clear by a flash from an explosion happening to the right, just off-screen to the north of the compound. In Figure 16, you can compare the scale of the first explosion to the warehouse on the right hand side, which is also seen in Figure 15. The video shows 3 explosions in total, as well as destruction that happened before the video started-indicating a sustained attack.
Fig 16 -Clear example of large explosion. Note the large warehouse to the right.
.