US to look into claims strike killed ‘52 civilians’ in Syria

Suspected chem attacks injure 40: activists

BEIRUT, May 2, (AP): The US military said Saturday it was looking into an activist group’s claim that at least 52 civilians were killed in USled airstrikes near the Syrian border town of Kobani amid its campaign against the extremist Islamic State group.

The strikes happened Thursday and Friday on the Syrian village of Bir Mahli, the Britain-based based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The US-led coalition said its strikes during that time destroyed seven Islamic State positions and one of the group’s vehicles near Kobani, which Kurdish fighters ultimately pushed the extremists out of after months of intense fighting.

On Saturday, the Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said the strikes only hit civilians in their homes in Bir Mhali, a mixed Kurdish and Arab village, killing 52, including seven children and nine women. His activist group relies on a network of activists on the ground in Syria, which has been mired in civil war for more than four years.

Maj. Curtis Kellogg, a spokesman for US Central Command, told The Associated Press that there was no information to corroborate the Observatory’s claims, though the coalition has measures in place to reduce potential collateral damage.

“We currently have no information to corroborate allegations that coalition airstrikes resulted in civilian casualties,” Kellogg said. “Regardless, we take all allegations seriously and will look into them further.”

Corroborating any account in Syria is extremely difficult, as journalists have been targeted by insurgent groups, including the Islamic State group, which has beheaded Western reporters. That includes information about casualties and damaged caused by US-led airstrikes.

Shorsh Hassan, a spokesman for the main Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, in Kobani, said he was not aware of any civilian casualties in the strikes. He told the AP that the village, held by Islamic State extremists, was emptied of civilians days before the clashes that preceded the airstrikes.

The area has seen heavy fighting between the Kurdish forces and the Islamic State militants.

Local journalist and activist Mustafa Bali, who was in a nearby village at the time of the clashes and the strikes, said he had only seen militants in the area around the village before the strikes.

Also: BEIRUT: Suspected chlorine gas attacks by Syrian government helicopters injured some 40 people and killed a child in the country’s northwest, activists said Saturday, a day after an international chemical weapons watchdog said it was ready to investigate a series of newly claimed attacks.

Videos shared by the Syrian Civil Defense activist group showed medics and residents rushing children to a local hospital as they coughed, some gasping for air in Saraqeb, a town in Idlib province. A video from Nareb, another town in the province where a coalition of insurgent groups has made gains in recent days against troops loyal to President Bashar Assad, showed a medic receiving oxygen himself after rescuing people from another attack.

The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting about the attacks.