Syria’s deadliest month of war

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

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and millions displaced since the war erupted in 2011.

It has since spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers, with Russianbacked regime forces and a USsupported alliance separately battling Islamic State (IS) jihadists in the country. The 955 civilians killed in September included 207 children, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria for its information.

“More than 70% of the civilians were killed in regime and Russian air strikes, or in air raids of the international coalition” fighting IS, the monitor’s head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Backed by Russian air strikes, the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad are pressing a battle to retake IScontrolled 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 their former northern bastion of Raqa city and in Deir Ezzor.

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

Eight children were among at least 34 civilians killed in strikes overnight on Friday on the town of Armanaz in Idlib, the Observatory said.