Talk:Aleppo University Attack: Physical Evidence

Dorm Strike Image Assessment
Moved from the front page. WHy not use this to invite critiques from the other couple of over-worked members? If anything is bad enough to call it, we won't put it up front. Reference throughout to images in the front page gallery. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Image 4, from SANA, is potentially quite useful, looking to the north/northwest. Note intact walls here, but marked. Three holes and a chip in almost a line above ground floor windows. 2nd floor, third window, chipped facade. This could be from fragments from the second impact here or, potentially by the proximity, from the first strike. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC) In general terms, the dramatic but superficial facade damage to the west facade stands out. It suggests the greatest force (at detonation) occurred just south (right) of the stairwell at the facade's center. The damage extends in both direction from there, but stops rather suddenly to the north, with portions of the stairwell walls knocked out and the faced on the strip north knocked away. In contrast, the damage trails off to the south. Each column of rooms losing less of their outer walls; first the narrow, redundant span of wall just south of the stairwell is missing floor to roof. Then it's 4 out of 6 floors blown open, then 3, then 2. The "steps" thus traced should roughly map the initial movement of the dome of detonating gasses at its greatest force. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Note in image 2 the two vehicles flipped (the northern one is the car in image 5) and the one just south that wound up still upright. That too will helps set where the blast was stronger and hitting vehicles from the side, as opposed to rolling over their aerodynamic fronts. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC) Image 9, run with a Press TV report. Looking south, there are little holes on the interior walls along this line. More damage than usual, left of picture center: heavy gouges in the vertical members, upper ground floor, a bit onto the second floor. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The likely impact point is in the middle foreground of images 3 and 8. There is one particular area on the right, very near the curb, that seems to be a crater with debris filling it in. We see pushed-out segment of curb, a thrust up earthen rock, and piles of soil around the edge of this area. To the left of that, much larger debris - building facade, mostly - perhaps covers the majority of the area excavated by explosives. Thus it's hard to say how wide or deep the crater is, just where it's centered, or how it's shaped. Until we can see a view of it once cleared, it will provide little evidence except an approximate best-guess for the hit location - somewhere in the IDP camp out front, a roughly 15-meter wide yard between the sidewalk and the building's face, apparently around or just south of building center. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Crater Location
The exact location of this (at left) still needs to be pinned down before the shape of it can tell us the implied trajectory. The basic area can be set by following the sidewalk to the black plumes straight ahead, so the west part of the roundabout, around here on Google Maps. Seems to be in the street, the top layer being asphalt/blacktop. The view of this photo seems to be to the southeast, catching the dorm in the upper center, with trees but no visible fences between. To the right, a lot of jumbled stuff behind chain link fence, perhaps after some clean-up, suggesting a later photo and an area that was likely street before. I'll break this down for FoV (below, stretched vertically to maximize the sliver of surroundings present) and then set lines that converge on the best location (later). --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:09, 26 February 2013 (UTC) This photo, image 10 in the roundabout gallery, might help, but it suggests the crater is at the roundabout's east edge, almost on the same block with the dorms, and so closer to the second hit than I thought. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:54, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This is what I was already seeing looking at satellite images. But usually there's a fence all around. Here's what I think happened: Too many people were camping in there, too, on account of the yahoo freedom campaign.So the hefty fence was taken out, replaced with moveable chain-link segments with spaces to get in and out. More tent material can be seen in both images, consistently placed. Another image, roundabout damage 11 (not uploaded yet) suggests poles and tarps/tents behind that fence that was apparently hit with a fireball. Note the trees aren't burned, though the cars are. It mostly just flashed acrosseverything, but cars have a way of continuing to burn. One tree in there seems to be broken and missing a decent middle part.
 * Anyway, in the second image above, we see a gray expanse with shadows that then fall off. I move that this is the edge of the crater as seen above there, lower right. It's a segment of asphalt turned up at an angle by the force. Sets the spot, right at the corner, just about at the curb. I don't any longer feel like I have a handle on the direction it came from. The clues seem to point different ways at the moment. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)