(Zaman Al Wasl)- Russian warplanes have carried out more than 30 raids on ISIS's de facto Syrian capital Raqqa on Wednesday, killing at least 18 people in second aerial attack in 24 hours, activists and monitoring group said.
On Tuesday, 23 people including 13 militants, were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Thirteen members of the Islamic State group and 10 civilians were killed in at least 16 air raids on the group's positions and premises in several parts of Raqqa city," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
ISIS seized Raqqa in January 2014, expelling various rebel groups that had seized it from the government the previous year.
Since then it has become the de facto Syrian capital of the territory controlled by the group, which it dubs an Islamic "caliphate".
The town has been targeted by Syrian government airstrikes and raids launched by Russia since its air campaign began in late September.
A U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS has also bombed the city in the past.
In central Syrian town of Al-Qaryatain, airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes on the ISIS-held town killed 23 civilians, the Observatory said Wednesday.
ISIS seized Al-Qaryatain in August, kidnapping several hundred civilians.
The group has also destroyed an ancient monastery in the town, which was once seen as a symbol of coexistence in Syria.
Russia began its air campaign in support of ally President Bashar Assad on Sept. 30, saying it was targeting ISIS and other "terrorists".
But rebels and their backers accuse Moscow of focusing largely on moderate and Islamist opposition forces rather than jihadists.
According to the Observatory, the first month of Russian strikes killed nearly 600 people, two-thirds of them fighters.
The rest -- some 185 -- were civilians, it says.
A U.S.-led coalition that has been bombing extremist targets in Syria since September 2014 has killed 3,649 people, according to the Observatory.
It says 226 of those, around six percent, have been civilians.
More than 250,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011. (With agencies)
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