US-backed forces pressed offensives on the Islamic State (IS) group’s strongholds in Syria and Iraq, as an airstrike by the US-led coalition reportedly killed 20 civilians near the Syrian city of Raqqa.
Supported by coalition air raids, Iraqi forces have pushed into IS’s Mosul stronghold and a Kurdish-Arab militia alliance has been advancing on the militants’ de facto Syrian capital Raqqa.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Wednesday said that a coalition strike overnight had hit the IS-held village of al-Heisha, about 40km north of Raqqa.
Photo: Reuters
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdul Rahman said nine women and two children were among the 20 civilians killed and that 32 others had been wounded.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the militia alliance that Washington is supporting in the assault, denied the civilian deaths.
“There is no such thing, and any such claims are IS news,” SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed said.
Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said it appeared there had been strikes in the area.
“After an initial assessment... the coalition confirms it did conduct strikes in the area described in the allegation,” he said. “However, more specific information is needed to conclusively determine responsibility for civilian casualties.”
The observatory said the latest deaths brought the number of civilians killed since US-led airstrikes in Syria began in September 2014 to 680, including 169 children.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon late on Wednesday said that US airstrikes in both Syria and Iraq might have killed 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than estimates by a number of monitoring groups.
About 200 families had fled al-Heisha, according to an SDF official.
“DAESH fighters brought heavy weapons to our village and stayed among us so that if there were strikes they would hit us,” 45-year-old Saada al-Aboud said after fleeing the town, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.
“They wouldn’t let us leave. We had to escape by running out into the fields, with our children and old people. What else could we do? We left everything behind,” al-Aboud said.
The SDF launched the drive towards Raqa on Saturday, upping pressure on the miliants three weeks after Iraqi forces began their assault on Mosul.
Raqqa and Mosul are the last major cities in Syria and Iraq under IS control, after the militants suffered losses that greatly reduced the size of the self-styled “caliphate” they declared in the middle of 2014 following their seizure of large parts of both countries.
The US-led coalition, which launched its air campaign against the IS two years ago, hopes that driving the group from the two cities would deal it a knockout blow.
The SDF has been pushing south from areas near the Turkish border toward Raqqa, seizing a string of villages and moving to positions about 35km from the city.
A reporter east of Ain Issa, the main staging point for the offensive, said coalition aircraft could be seen on Wednesday carrying out repeated airstrikes in the distance and that IS fighters were shelling SDF positions.
Elsewhere in Syria, the observatory said, eight civilians were killed in rebel rocket attacks on the Furqan and university districts of government-held western Aleppo, while state news agency SANA gave a death toll of six, with students among those killed.
Eight more civilians were killed on Wednesday in airstrikes on a village in Idlib Province of northwest Syria, the observatory said.
In Iraq, an official on Tuesday said that Kurdish Peshmerga fighters had seized the town of Bashiqa near Mosul, which would be a final step in securing the eastern approaches to the city.
There were still pockets of resistance in the town, officials said, and a reporter in Bashiqa reported continued airstrikes, gunfire and explosions.
The Peshmerga and Iraqi federal forces have been advancing on Mosul from the north, east and south since Oct. 17, and last week pushed into the city’s eastern outskirts.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he hoped for enduring US support following Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s election win.
“We look forward to the continued support of the world and the United States in standing with Iraq in its confrontation with terrorism,” al-Abadi said in a statement congratulating Trump.
Officials are warning of long and bloody battles ahead in Mosul and Raqa, with the IS expected to put up fierce resistance and to use trapped civilians as human shields.
More than 1 million people are believed to be in Mosul.
Raqa in 2011 had a pre-war population of about 240,000 and more than 80,000 people have since fled there from elsewhere in Syria.
The International Organization for Migration on Wednesday said that nearly 42,000 people had fled their homes since the start of the Mosul operation.
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