Syria Aid Convoy Hit by Air Strike, Says U.N. Expert

An air strike was responsible for the attack on an aid convoy in Syria that killed 18 people last month, a U.N. expert said Wednesday.

"With our analysis we determined it was an air strike," said Lars Bromley, a researcher at the United Nations body UNOSAT, which collects and analyses satellite images. 

U.S. officials have said that Russian planes carried out the air strikes on September 19 that hit the 31-truck convoy bringing aid to a town west of the besieged city of Aleppo. 

Moscow has denied the accusation and the Russian military is carrying out its own investigation of the bombing that destroyed 18 trucks and damaged a warehouse.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last week announced that he was setting up a board of inquiry into the bombing. 

Bromley said UNOSAT had an image that "clearly" showed the damage at the site of the attack. 

"For air strikes what you are usually looking at is the size of the crater that is visible, and the type of crater," he told reporters in Geneva.  

"Basically air-dropped munitions are often much larger than anything you would fire from the ground", he added, explaining his analysis. 

U.N. officials have said the area around the convoy that was clearly identified with United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent markings. 

The strikes on the convoy in Urum al-Kubra claimed the life of the local head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Omar Barakat, as well as 12 volunteers and five drivers. 

Another 15 drivers were wounded, many civilians were killed and wounded, and the warehouse as well as a nearby medical clinic severely damaged.