Coalition air strikes killed 28 in eastern Syria, near border with Iraq — monitor

By AFP - Nov 13,2018 - Last updated at Nov 13,2018

Iraqi Shiite fighter of the Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary force secure the border in Al Qaim in the Anbar province on Monday, opposite Albu Kamal in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor region, where US-led coalition strikes allegedly killed 28 people (AFP photo)

BEIRUT — Air strikes by the US-led coalition have killed 28 people in an eastern Syria holdout of the Daesh group on the Iraqi border, a war monitor said on Tuesday.

Those killed in the village of Al Shaafa on Sunday included 22 civilian members of Daesh families, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
monitor said.

"On Tuesday, 22 bodies of civilians were retrieved including nine children, as well as the remains of six other people not yet identified," observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

"The strikes targeted Daesh homes in Al Shaafa," he said, inside a last pocket under extremist control in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

The bodies could not be retrieved earlier because air raids were ongoing, he said.

A coalition spokesman did not immediately reply for a request for comment, but has previously said that it would investigate any credible claims of civilian casualties.

The coalition has been backing a Kurdish-led alliance called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting the extremists.

The SDF late last month suspended its fight against Daesh in protest at Turkish shelling of Kurdish militia positions along Syria's northern border.

But they said on Sunday they were resuming their battle after "intensive contacts" with the international coalition and "strong diplomatic activity" to defuse the crisis.

Daesh overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" in land it controlled.

But the extremist group has since lost most of it to various offensives in both countries.

In Syria, the group has seen its presence reduced to parts of the vast desert and the pocket in Deir Ezzor.

Since 2014 the US-led coalition has acknowledged direct responsibility for more than 1,100 civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq, but rights groups put the number killed much higher.

Syria's war has killed more than 360,000 people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

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