US-led strikes kill over 60 Syrian civilians: Group
Over 60 civilians in Syria have reportedly been killed in separate airstrikes by aircraft involved in the US-led military campaign allegedly targeting the ISIL Takfiri militants.
The Britain-based so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced on Monday that 66 civilians, among them ten children and six women, died when the air raids hit oil fields and refineries in Syria’s northern province of al-Raqqa, the eastern Deir al-Zor Province, al-Hassakah and Idlib provinces in the northeast as well as the town of Manbij, located 446 kilometers (277 miles) north of the capital, Damascus.
Since September 2014, the US along with its regional allies has been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.This is while many of the countries joining the so-called anti-terror coalition, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been the staunch supporters of the Takfiri elements fighting against the Syrian government.
The airstrikes by US and its allies are an extension of the US-led aerial campaign against the ISIL positions in Iraq, which started in August 2014.
The ISIL terrorists currently control swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq. They have committed terrible atrocities in both countries, including mass executions and beheading of local residents as well as foreign nationals.
Over 215,000 people have reportedly been killed in Syria due to a crisis in the country which erupted in March 2011.
New figures show that over 76,000 people, including thousands of children, lost their lives in Syria in 2014. Nearly four million Syrians have left their country since the beginning of the crisis, and 7.6 million civilians have been internally displaced.
