15 children die in airstrike on Daesh-held village

AFP
A man stands on the rubble of damaged buildings after an airstrike on the rebel-held town of Mesraba in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria, on Sunday. (REUTERS)

BEIRUT: Russian airstrikes on Sunday killed 34 civilians, among them 15 children, in a village held by Daesh in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province, a monitor said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit the village of Al-Shafah, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The Observatory relies on a network of sources inside Syria, and says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.
Russia is a close ally of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, and in September 2015 began a military intervention in support of his regime that has gradually helped Damascus regain territory.
Syria’s Deir Ezzor is one of the last places Daesh terrorists hold territory in the country, after being driven from their major strongholds including their one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqqa city.
The oil-rich eastern province that borders Iraq was once almost completely under Daesh control, but the terrorists now hold just nine percent of Deir Ezzor, according to the Observatory.
They have faced two separate offensives there, one led by the regime with Russian backing and the other by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.