News / Syria

Fresh US-led airstrikes kill 6 civilians in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr

Thursday, 17 August 2017 12:36 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 17 August 2017 12:37 PM ]

In this file photo, smoke rises after a US-led airstrike on the Syrian town of Kobani. (Photo by Reuters)

At least six civilians have been killed when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group carried out a series of aerial attacks against Syria’s troubled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.

Local sources, requesting anonymity, told Syria’s official news agency, SANA, that the US-led military aircraft bombarded residential buildings in the city of al-Jala, located along the Euphrates River and south of the provincial capital city of Dayr al-Zawr, as well as the towns of At-Tayana, al-Zabari, Boqruss and Subaikhan.

The sources added that three children were among the deceased, noting that the airstrikes also destroyed a number of houses, public properties and civilian infrastructure in the targeted areas.

The fatalities came only a day after the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 17 civilians, including five children, had been killed in US-led strikes against Syria’s militant-held northern city of Raqqah.

The Britain-based monitoring group added that 38 civilians had been killed in US-led airstrikes on the city, Daesh's main stronghold in Syria and located about 455 kilometers northeast of the capital Damascus, since Monday.

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 military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of destroying Daesh.

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 following year.

It is estimated that some 300,000 civilians are trapped inside Raqqah, including 80,000 displaced from other parts of Syria. Thousands have fled in recent months, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs believes about 160,000 people remain in the city.

On June 6, the US-backed militiamen from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they had launched an operation aimed at pushing Daesh out of Raqqah.

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