U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against IS in Syria kill over 860: monitor

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State group and other extremists in Syria have killed more than 860 people, including civilians, since they began in mid-September, a monitoring group said Wednesday, Nov 11, according to the Associated Press.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the vast majority those killed — 746 people — were Islamic State militants, while another 68 were members of al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate known as the Nusra Front. At least 50 civilians, including eight children and five women, also have been killed in the airstrikes, the group said.

The U.S.-led coalition's aerial campaign in Syria began before dawn on Sept 23 in what President Barack Obama has called an effort to roll back and ultimately destroy the Islamic State group. The militant extremist group has been the primary target of the coalition's strikes, although on at least two occasions the United States has targeted what it says is a specific cell within the Nusra Front allegedly plotting attacks against American interests.

The airstrikes in Syria expanded upon a U.S.-led operation in neighboring Iraq against the Islamic State group, which has seized control of a large chunk of territory spanning the two countries.

In Iraq, government security forces and Shiite militias have largely halted the militants' advance, even rolling them back from some areas with the help of coalition airstrikes. But heavy fighting still rages on multiple fronts, and attacks on government troops and civilians remain common, particularly in Baghdad.

On Wednesday, three bombings in and around the Iraqi capital killed at least 17 people and wounded nearly 40, police and hospital officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but they all bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group.