Scores killed in Syria

Air strikes by the US-led coalition yesterday killed 43 people, mostly civilians, in a Daesh holdout in eastern Syria, a Britain-based monitor said.

Seventeen children were among 36 Daesh family members killed in Abu Husn village of Deir Ezzor province near the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Another seven victims had not yet been identified as either civilians or Daesh fighters, it said.

The US-led coalition has been backing a Kurdish-Arab alliance called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting to expel the extremists from the pocket around Abu Husn. “It’s the highest death toll in coalition air strikes since the SDF launched its attack against the IS pocket” in September, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. The coalition has repeatedly said it does its utmost to prevent civilian casualties.