US-LED STRIKES KILL DOZENS IN I.S.-RUN SYRIAN PRISON

At least 42 prisoners and 15 jihadists killed, says Britain-based war monitor

UNITED States-led coalition air strikes killed nearly 60 people at a Syrian prison run by the Islamic State group, a monitor said yesterday, as Washington insisted the jihadists were its only target.

The coalition has been hitting IS in Syria and Iraq since mid2014 but has also been involved in recent confrontations with President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, raising fears of the US being drawn into Syria’s civil war.

Monday’s strikes hit an IS-run jail in Mayadeen, a large town in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, at dawn, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the strikes killed 42 prisoners and 15 jihadists.

Most of Deir Ezzor province is controlled by the jihadists and it has been the target of air strikes by both the coalition and the Syrian army and its Russian ally.

Last week, the US-led coalition said that it had killed IS’s top ulama Turki Binali in a May 31 strike on Mayadeen.

The jihadists, who seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq three years ago, are under pressure in both countries.

US-backed forces are pushing to oust them from their last major urban strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

The Syrian war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, which evolved into a complicated, multi-front war that has killed more than 320,000 people and forced millions from their homes. AFP