US strikes in Syria kill 38 civilians in past two days

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said on Thursday that at least 38 civilians were killed in air strikes carried out by a U.S.-led coalition in Hasaka province in northeast Syria in the past two days.

The United States and its allies are carrying out air raids in the area against ISIS, which controls some parts of Hasaka province but has lost ground in recent months.

Hasaka borders mostly ISIS-held Deir al-Zor province and Raqqa, the group's de facto capital in Syria.

The death toll published by the Observatory, which tracks the war using a network of contacts on the ground, included at least 15 people killed when strikes hit a bakery in the city of al-Shadadi near the border with Iraq on Tuesday.

Air raids in at least three other villages killed 15 others on Thursday, including three children, while eight more civilians died in air strikes elsewhere, it said.

U.S. Lieutenant General Charles Brown, head of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said he was aware of the report of civilian casualties. The U.S.-led coalition will begin assessing the credibility of those reports and start an investigation if required, he added.

"I do know that we've been striking at that area over the past several days," Brown said.

The UK-based monitoring group said 35 members of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group were killed in separate air raids near the town of al-Houl, near the Iraqi border, and farther south.

The civilian casualties came after a warplane hit a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, in the northern province of Idlib on Monday, killing at least 25 people.

The Paris-based medical aid group has slammed the attack on its facility as “deliberate,” and called for an independent investigation into the killing.

Damascus says “intelligence information” showed US warplanes carried out the attack, but Washington has denied any involvement.


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