SEPTEMBER WAS SYRIA’S WORST MONTH IN 2017, 3,000 KILLED

BEIRUT: Syria’s war killed at least 3,000 people including 955 civilians in September, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said on Sunday, in the deadliest month of the conflict this year.

“More than 70% of the civilians were killed in regime and Russian air strikes, or in air raids of the international coalition” fighting the Islamic State, the Britainbased monitor’ s head Ra mi Ab del Rahman said.

Backed by Russian air strikes, the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad are pressing a battle to retake IS-controlled areas in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

A US-led international coalition has been providing air support to a Kurdish-Arab alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, also fighting the jihadists in its former northern bastion of Raqqa city and Deir Ezzor.

The number of people killed in September was higher due to increased fighting and “intensified air raids of the international coalition and Russia against jihad is tb a st ions in the north and east of Syria, but also due to increased Russian and regime strikes on rebel-held areas,” Abdel Rahman said.

Russian and regime war planes have in the past two weeks increased their strikes on Idlib, controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group led by Al-Q a ed a’ s former Syria affiliate.

The 955 civilians killed in September included 207 children, said the Observatory.