Coalition hits back at civilian deaths reports

– The US-led anti-jihadist coalition hit back yesterday at reports its air strikes on an Islamic State group holdout in eastern Syria had killed civilians, appearing to blame their deaths on regime forces.

The jihadist IS group overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” in territory it controlled, but has since lost most of it to various offensives.

In war-torn Syria, multiple offensives have now whittled down territory IS once controlled to a small pocket in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on the Iraqi border.

A Kurdish-led alliance backed by the coalition is battling to expel IS from that holdout on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, while Russian-backed regime forces have been fighting the jihadists west of the river.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said coalition strikes on Saturday killed 43 people, including 36 family members of IS fighters in the village of Abu al-Husn in the jihadist pocket.

But the coalition denied that its air raids there had killed any non-combatants.

The US envoy for the coalition, Brett McGurk, yesterday appeared to blame regime forces stationed “across the river” for the civilian casualties.

“Reports of civilian casualties attributed to coalition strikes are false. All other forces should cease uncoordinated fires from across the river immediately,” he said on Twitter.

In a statement late Saturday, the coalition reported 19 coalition strikes on IS targets “free of civilian presence” between late Friday and Saturday afternoon in the jihadist enclave, which includes the town of Hajin.

The coalition’s “initial assessment following the strikes is that there was no evidence of civilians near the strikes”, it said.

But the coalition “detected a total of 10 additional strikes in the same area of Hajin that did not originate from the coalition or partner forces”, it added.

It called “on all other actors to cease uncoordinated fires across the Euphrates”.

The Observatory said regime forces and IS fighters exchanged fire across the river on Saturday, but pro-government shelling did not hit Abu al-Husn.

The Britain-based war monitor says it obtains its information from sources inside Syria, and determines who carries out air strikes according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions involved.

The US-led international coalition has consistently denied reports by the Observatory in recent weeks that its air raids have killed civilians. It says it takes allegations of civilian casualties seriously and investigates each one thoroughly. – AFP