Attack on Red Crescent convoy in Urm al-Kubra



A Syrian Red Crescent aid convoy was attacked at a warehouse in Urm al-Kubra west of Aleppo around 7:30 pm on September 19, 2016, half and hour after the 7 day ceasefire ended and the Syrian and Russian air forces restarted airstrikes. 20 out of 30 trucks were said to be destroyed with some 10 people killed.

The convoy came from government controlled west Aleppo. The convoy was monitored by a Russian reconnaissance drone with real time streaming on YouTube. Activist say the aid was meant for "Syrian Christians". It is possible some of it was on its way to the besieged Kafarya and al-Fu'ah further to the west.

Activist claims

 * مجزرة أورم الكبرى 19-9-2016 (Urm Kubra massacre 19/09/2016) - Syrian Civil Defense - Aleppo (Facebook)
 * ''Today, at 7:12 PM, regime helicopters targeted a Syrian Red Crescent warehouse in the town of Urem in the western countryside of Aleppo
 * ''A total of four regime helicopters targeted it with 8 barrel bombs.
 * ''Russian aircraft then stuck the location with cluster bombs, preventing the civil defense from reaching the location of the attack, giving first aid to those requiring it and removing the dead bodies.
 * ''25 vehicles have been burnt and the fire has not yet been put out.
 * ''The head of the Syrian Red Crescent, Omar Barakat, was killed along with eight of his staff.
 * ''More than ten drivers have been burned to death.
 * ''The video was recorded this evening by a member of the civil defense at the location of the attack.


 * Comments heard on the video: first attack, 'regime helicopter with 4 barrels'; second attack, 'regime attacked this place again'

Mixup with UN convoy
Much of the media and its readers are mixing up the UN convoy that never entered Syria with this SARC convoy that came from west Aleppo.

Video

 * Russian reconnaissance drone monitoring Syrian ceasefire (Streamed live) - RT, Streamed live 11 hours ago
 * The video at 1:00:20 shows the warehouse with the trucks. (screenshots)
 * Aid convoys up in flames in rural west Aleppo. Civil Defence at scene describe what happened FSA Platform - White Hemlet at the scene, night-time, fires burning, speaking in English at the Red Crescent center, he blames helicopters for the first part of the attack, gets cut off before explaining the second attack.
 * The moment of the bombing of a convoy of Russian warplanes of the Syrian Red Crescent aid in the major town of Orme in the countryside of Aleppo # (full dark, fires already burning, seen from a distance, then a powerful double blast, possible jet noise preceding - video starts just seconds before this and goes for 3:00 after)
 * Centre of the Syrian Red Crescent, which has been the main target dozens of air strikes from warplanes (burning wreckage)
 * Aerial bombardment on the Aleppo province kills 32 civilians, targeting a convoy of humanitarian aid (Euronews Arabic report, varied footage)
 * The effects of mass winning at the Red Crescent building by the Russian air raids overnight Next-day site video shows bombing effects and location

Photo

 * Jake Godin on Twitter: Daylight photos from site where @SYRedCrescent was bombed yesterday in western #Aleppo starting to emerge. Here are some from @AleppoAMC"
 * more from the same user (Originally from Aleppo Media center)
 * detail of damaged car run with AP report
 * Collection of photos on the CIWCL page on Facebook

News

 * The Latest: Airstrikes hit aid convoy in Aleppo province - AP, September 19, 2016
 * ''The aid convoy was part of a routine dispatch from government-held Aleppo to rural rebel-held parts of the province. There was no immediate comment from the government.
 * Elizabeth Tsurkov ‏@Elizrael on Twitter
 * ''The trucks left regime-held areas. Their exit was coordinated with the regime. Russian drones w cameras followed the convoy's movements.
 * Syria conflict: US 'outraged' over aid convoy attack - BBC'', September 20, 2016
 * ''The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said the attacks were carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft.
 * ''It added the dead included the Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers and drivers.
 * ''The UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien said if the "callous attack" was found to be deliberate it would amount to a war crime.
 * UN suspends all convoys in Syria after attack on aid trucks AP Sept. 20
 * In Geneva, spokesman Jens Laerke of OCHA said on Tuesday that further aid delivery would hold pending a review of the security situation in Syria in the aftermath of the airstrikes. Laerke called it "a very, very dark day... for humanitarians across the world."
 * At least 12 aid workers killed in Syria airstrike - Erin Cunningham, The Washington Post, September 20, 2016
 * ''NEW YORK – At least a dozen humanitarian aid workers, and an unknown number of civilians, were killed Monday in an airstrike on a convoy delivering assistance west of Aleppo that the Obama administration said was likely launched by the Syrian government or Russia.
 * ''“We know it was an airstrike and not one from the coalition. We don’t know if it was Russia or the regime,” the only others flying over Syria, a senior administration official said. “In either case, the Russians have a responsibility certainly to avoid doing it themselves, but also to keep restraint on the regime.”
 * ''In a statement issued late Monday, the State Department said, “The destination of this convoy was known to the Syrian regime and the Russian federation and yet these aid workers were killed in their attempt to provide relief to the Syrian people.”
 * CBS News, Sept. 20:
 * President Bashar Assad’s government and its key backers in Moscow, however, finally offered comment on the incident Tuesday, flatly denying any responsibility. Russia’s Defense Ministry said no Russian or Syrian aircraft had carried out the strikes, and claimed only rebel factions knew the precise whereabouts of the aid convoy.
 * “We have strong indications -- not just from our own information, but from the United Nations, from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, from the White Helmets -- the first responders who so bravely serve the Syrian people -- that this was an airstrike that led to these deaths,” a senior administration official told CBS News on Tuesday. “We know it wasn’t an airstrike by the coalition that we work with. That only leaves two possibilities for people -- for nations that are operating in the air in Syria, and in any case Russia is responsible for its side of this equation and will need to speak to whatever information it has about how this came about.” 
 * Russian, Syrian Air Forces did not strike UN aid convoy in Aleppo - Russian MoD, RT, Sept 20, 2016
 * ''“Russian and Syrian warplanes did not carry out any airstrikes on a UN humanitarian aid convoy in the southwest of Aleppo,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement Tuesday.
 * '' "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,” Konashenkov added.
 * UN rows back from describing Syria convoy attack as air strikes Reuters via Asia Times, September 21, 2016
 * The United Nations rowed back on Tuesday from describing an attack on an aid convoy in Syria as air strikes, saying it did not have conclusive evidence about what had happened.
 * After the Russian explanation, the UN put out a revised version of an earlier statement, removing wording on "air strikes" and replacing it with references to unspecified "attacks."
 * UN humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke said the references to air strikes in the original statement, attributed to the top UN humanitarian officials in the region and in Syria, were probably the result of a drafting error.
 * "We are not in a position to determine whether these were in fact air strikes. We are in a position to say that the convoy was attacked," he said.
 * one copy as "UN backtracks on description of attack on Syria aid convoy as 'air strikes'" since replaced


 * UN unsure if ‘air strikes’ behind convoy attack - al-Arabiya, September 20, 2016
 * Original title: ''UN: Syria convoy attack ‘could be war crime’

Location

 * Live UA Map - with video
 * WikiMapia
 * Source: The @SYRedCrescent at these intersections in Kafr Naha/Oram al-Kubra


 * Russian drone footage (stills) shows the trucks parked at the location above in Kafr Naha and at this facility further east, just east of Urm alKubra. Both spots mapped below. If these images were taken at the same time, the convoy was divided. By shadows, when the drone passed (second photo anyway) the solar azimuth was about 225 deg., equating to a time of about 2:25 pm. This may be the same spots where they remained at the time of the attack, about 5 hours later.

MoD Video Stream

 * TASS report, at 20:42, says that at about 20:00 a web camera and transmission equipment at Assad Academy was hit. No video feed from any source is seen on Russian MoD site, checking on it at about 21:16.
 * It is uncertain whether Russian MoD monitored in detail all of its own video feed; they would monitor areas of their own responsibility and attention, but not necessarily particular rebel sites, unless they had to, by prior agreements. There may be no arrangement for them to monitor security at the rebel warehouse, and they may not have prior experience that due to info warfare that might be quite a good idea.
 * After watching their own video some more, Russian MoD found rebel large caliber mortar on a pickup truck moving with the convoy (report and video;video also here).

June 27th attack?

 * SYRIA: Civil Defense Volunteers Report Cluster Munitions Used in Airstrikes West of Aleppo June 27 - New.com.au, June 28, 2016
 * ''Syrian Civil Defense workers released footage on June 27 purporting to show several volunteers extinguishing a fire at a warehouse in Urem al-Kubra, located 11 miles west of the city of Aleppo, which was allegedly caused by cluster munitions used in airstrikes over the area.

Analysis

 * How we "Know" Russia or Syria Bombed the Aleppo Aid Convoy Monitor on Massacre Marketing, Sept. 21