News / Syria

US-led strike kills 4 Syrian civilians in Daesh-held Raqqah

Friday, 16 June 2017 2:59 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 16 June 2017 3:00 PM ]

In this file photo provided by the US Air Force, an F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, to launch airstrikes against Daesh targets in Syria. (Photo by AP)

A so-called monitoring group says at least four civilians have lost their lives when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group carried out an aerial attack in Syria's militant-held northern province of Raqqah.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that the airstrike targeted Khalid ibn al-Walid school in al-Intifada neighborhood of the provincial capital city of Raqqah, shortly after midnight.

The monitoring group said the aerial assault left a man and three of his children dead.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The city of Raqqah, which lies on the northern bank of the Euphrates River, was overrun by Daesh terrorists in March 2013, and was proclaimed the center for most of the Takfiris’ administrative and control tasks the next year.

The US-led coalition has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of destroying Daesh.

Syrian government forces rest in Damascus' northeastern al-Qaboun suburb on May 16, 2017, after they retook the formerly militant-held neighborhood. (Photo by AFP)

Separately, Syrian army soldiers, supported by Air Force Military aircraft, have launched a series of counter-terrorism operations against Daesh terrorists in and around the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr, inflicting heavy losses on the terrorists in terms of military equipment and personnel.

A correspondent for Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that government troops repelled a Daesh offensive on Tal al-Borouk area late on Thursday, killing scores of the terrorists and destroying a number of their vehicles.

Syrian Air Force jets also carried out a string of strikes against Daesh positions in Hetlah and Marat villages in the eastern outskirts of Dayr al-Zawr. A large Daesh ammunition depot was destroyed in an attack in Marat.

Syria has been fighting different foreign-sponsored militant and terrorist groups since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated last August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the crisis until then.

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