At least 12 civilians, including four children, were killed in raids targeting a town still controlled by the Islamic state in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as cited by AFP.
The Syrian Observatory said that “planes belonging to the International Coalition led by Washington targeted Sunday night the town of Sousse on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River,” where the Syrian Democratic Forces, a gathering of Kurdish and Arab factions are fighting to expel the Islamic state organization from the last pockets in the province of Deir al-Zour border with Iraq.
According to the observatory, “12 civilians from one family, including four children, were killed.”
There was no immediate comment on the international coalition on information provided by the Syrian Observatory.
The International Coalition acknowledged in late December that it had “unintentionally” killed 817 civilians in air strikes in Syria and Iraq since 2014.
The international coalition supports Syria’s democratic forces in its battles against the organization of the Islamic state. These forces were able to expel the jihadists from large areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in the province of Deir al-Zour, and remained under the control of the extremist organization only five towns and villages, including the town of Sousse.
After three years of control over large areas in Syria and Iraq, where the establishment of the “Islamic Caliphate”, the organization of the Islamic state in recent months in successive defeats in the two countries lost 95% of the areas of control, including the city of Raqqa, which was a stronghold in Syria .
The extremist organization no longer controls any city in Syria, but it has villages, towns and pockets of no more than five percent, with a few thousand fighters, with no headquarters.
