86 killed as SDF clashes with Daesh

Daesh has killed at least 47 US-backed fighters over two days in their embattled holdout in eastern Syria, a war monitor said on Saturday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Kurdish-led alliance supported by a USled coalition is battling to expel the extremists from a pocket in the eastern province of Deir Al Zor on the Iraqi border.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the extremists launched three assaults. The attacks targeted the villages of Al Bahra and Gharanij and an area close to the Al Tanak oilfield.

Thirty-nine Daesh extremists have also been killed — some in the ground clashes, others in air strikes — over the same period, the Observatory said. Syria’s war has killed half a million people since it erupted in 2011.