US-led coalition strikes kill 20 civilians in Syria, says monitor

This image made from militant video posted online on Tuesday by the Aamaq News Agency, a media arm of the Islamic State group, purports to shows destroyed houses following a U.S.-led coalition strike in the eastern Syrian town of Boukamal, on the Iraqi border. (AP)
BEIRUT: Airstrikes by the US-led coalition fighting Daesh killed 20 civilians in Syria’s eastern Deir Ez Zor province, a monitor said on Tuesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths came in two separate incidents on Monday.
It also reported 10 civilians, among them nine children, were killed in a suspected Russian airstrike on Tuesday on a town in the opposition-controlled province of Idlib.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.
The Britain-based monitor said a US strike on Monday night on the Deir Ez Zor town of Albu Kamal had killed 13 civilians, among them five children.
The strike also killed three members of Daesh, which controls the town by the Syria-Iraq border, the monitor said.
Earlier Monday, a US-led coalition strike killed seven civilians, including a child, in the village of Husseinyeh, the monitor said.
The US-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against Daesh in Syria since 2014 and is providing air support for a Kurdish-Arab alliance advancing on the terrorist bastion of Raqqa.
Last month, the coalition said its campaign against Daesh in Syria and Iraq had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians, but monitors say the real number is far higher.
Most of the oil-rich province of Deir Ez Zor, in Syria’s east, is held by Daesh, including parts of the provincial capital, Deir Ez Zor city.
The terrorists have besieged the remaining regime-held parts of Deir Ez Zor city, trapping civilians inside with limited access to supplies.
More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-regime protests in March 2011.