Air strikes in eastern Syria kill 12 civilians

beirut — Air strikes on one of the last villages still held by the Daesh group in eastern Syria killed 12 civilians, including four children, a monitor said on Monday.

The strikes were carried out late Sunday on the village of Susa in Deir Ezzor province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“Twelve civilians from a same family, including four children, were killed,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told

The Britain-based monitoring organisation, which has a broad network of sources on the ground, said the strikes were likely conducted by the US-led coalition that launched air raids against Daesh in Syria and Iraq in 2014.

There was no immediate comment from the coalition.

The Daesh group has lost nearly all the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria and is clinging to a scattering of small villages and pockets of land in the border area.

The coalition admitted on Thursday to “unintentionally” killing at least 817 civilians since it started its aerial campaign against Daesh.

Meanwhile, the government forces battled with rebels and Al Qaeda militants on two other fronts on Sunday.

Rebels supported by an Al Qaeda-linked cell renewed their assault against pro-government forces that have been holding a vast pocket of the Damascus suburbs under siege, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A second front between many of the same groups saw fresh fighting in northwest Syria, along the border between Idlib and Hama provinces, according to the Observatory and Syrian military media.

The fighting near Damascus was continuing around the contested town of Harasta and a military installation.—