An OTR-21 Tochka tactical ballistic missile launched by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) late on late on November 20 reportedly struck a refugee camp in the vicinity of the town of Kah a few kilometers away from the border from Turkey.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) as always declared that the strike killed or injured a number of civilians. According to the pro-militant outlet, at least sixteen civilians, mostly women and children, died in the incident.
Pro-government sources said that the missile was intended to hit an ammo depot located right next to the camp.
The sound of secondary explosions can be heard clearly in a video showing the aftermath of the missile impact. In another video, one of the first responders on site can be heard warning others from “ammunition in the corner.”
Tochka-type missiles can have a circular error probable (CEP) of between 150-70 meters depending on the variant. The missiles fragmentation warhead has a lethal radius more than 200 m, which may explain how nearby refugee’s tents were hit.
Just like most areas in northern Idlib, Kha is controlled by al-Qaeda-afflicted Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The terrorist group and its allies are known for storing weapons in civilian areas, especially near the border with Turkey.
Last month, a Russian pinpoint airstrike destroyed an ammo depot of HTS that was hidden right behind civilian buildings in the town of Darkush near the Turkish border. Secondary explosions killed several civilians and a member of the White Helmets organization.
In many other cases, ammo stored by HTS inside Idlib’s heavy populated city center exploded killing or injuring militants and civilians. Jaysh al-Izza, a close ally of HTS, actively train its fighters a few meters away from refugee camps in Idlib. The group even holds live fire drills there.
This systematic use of civilians in Idlib as human shields by HTS and its allies goes unnoticed by main stream media that are now attempting to exploit the blood of Kha’s victims to justify actions of these terrorist groups.
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This was a big fat failure of intelligence mistake. DO BETTER! Assad should issue order to reevaluate the targets to make sure nothing like this happens. I don’t trust SOHR and take their toll with a grain of salt but there were casualties.
Civilian casualties and mistakes will always happen. It’s like Murphy’s law, you have to be on top of your game 100% of the time all the time to not make mistake, Murphy needs to be lucky only once for you to screw up. And since we’re human we always manage to screw up at some point.
Well fuck, do better? What do you want saa to do, the weapons are stored a stones throw from civilians.
HTS puts these ammo depots there on purpose, my sympathies go to the refugees, they are trult stuck between a rock and a hard place .
Poor bastards being used like cattle by HTS.
You cant avoid accidents, and as far as i read, it was fragments and secondarys that caused the loss of civilians; not the impact from the Tochka.
If i had to count every time my tent/PREFAB in Iraq was struck by fragments as a hit, the freedom fighters had a near 100% accuracy.
A hit is when the warhead is effective within the intended target area/aiming point.
This is a viceous war it would be impossible to avoid some civilian casualties
This is what the terrorists have been waiting for. One mistake by SAA is a wet dream for terrorists. It looks like we will see MSM very busy because of this. Usually they would make up stories like this and then cry out for the world’s attention but this time it was real, even though this was an accidental mistake by SAA.
Well, in the Netherlands at least they won’t be able to bitch and moan about this because it has emerged that the Dutch Air Force killed 5 times as much civilians in two airstrikes in Iraq. If its okay to shrug off 74 dead Iraqi’s as mistakes then quit your yapping about 16 dead Syrians.
16 civilian death by this bombing action, right ? Then, why is only a death cat shown on this video ?
That is right.
SOHR is the source. I wonder if that is the reason?
People here need to take notice that it was not the bombing which killed any civilians (if some really did die) but the secondary explosions of the stored military hardware. This is no mistake, it is a necessity.
There seems to be no value to human life in countries like Syria, Iran and Iraq.
And how do you value life in palestine?
Fucking hypocrite.
Very high. pussy Mike.
Mistakes do happen in war, but this shouldn’t have happened, the camps close vicinity to the alleged ammo dump should’ve been ample reason not to target the area at all, terrible judgment from Assad and something he should be held accountable for. Come on Assad, lift your game, no more repeats of this sort of accident no matter what the problem was, bad intel, faulty guidance system, pure stupidity, one mistake like this is too many. Just imagine if the strike was actually successful and hit the ammo dump, the ammo blowing up could have done even more damage than the actual strike did, and possibly made the casualty count even worse, I’ve seen videos of big ammo dumps going up, BIG BANGS. And when they say “the missile was intended to hit an ammo depot located right next to the camp”, how close do they mean by “right next door” 1 km, 2 km, 3 km, or just 500 meters?. Anyone less than 2 km away from a big ammo dump that goes up in one big bang isn’t safe at all, so unless the refugee camp was located at least 5 km away from the ammo dump, I’d say whoever authorized this missile launch was an idiot.
blather blather
When you give me dislikes I know I’m doing something right, LOL. Go back to Erdogan and ask for a payrise now.