US-backed forces pressed offensives on the ISIS group’s strongholds in Syria and Iraq, as an air strike by the American-led coalition reportedly killed 20 civilians near the Syrian city of Raqa.
Supported by coalition air raids, Iraqi forces have pushed into ISIS’s Mosul stronghold and a Kurdish-Arab militia alliance has been advancing on the jihadists’ de facto Syrian capital Raqa. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday that a coalition strike overnight had hit the IS-held village of Al-Heisha, about 40 kilometres north of Raqa.
Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring group, said nine women and two children were among the 20 civilians killed and that 32 others had been wounded.