(Zaman Al Wasl)- U.S.-led coalition air strikes on Raqqa killed 12 people, including 7 family members, as the Kurdish-led forces press new advances in the de facto capital of the radical group, local activists and Amaq news agency said.
The strikes hit the neighborhood of al-Sebahiya, topping the death toll to 23 in three days, ISIS-run news agency said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that coalition air strikes on Saturday killed 24 civilians inside Raqa, up from an earlier toll of 13.
The increased toll brought civilian deaths in coalition raids to a total of 58 since the battle for Raqa city was launched on June 6, the Observatory added.
To back the assault, the US-led coalition has provided the Syrian Democratic Forces with air cover, special forces advisers, weapons and other equipment.
The alliance first began bombing IS positions in Iraq in August 2014, and expanded its operations to Syria the following month.
An estimated 300,000 civilians were believed to have been living under IS rule in Raqa, including 80,000 displaced from other parts of Syria.
Thousands have fled in recent months, and the UN humanitarian office estimates about 160,000 people remain in the city.
They have no electricity and were facing severe water shortages, according to the activist collective known as Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.
"Most of the bakeries are closed because of the lack of flour," the group wrote on Sunday.
The SDF pushed closer to the Old City in the militant stronghold of Raqqa on Monday, the Observatory said on Monday.
The Kurdish and Arab fighters entered Raqqa for the first time almost a week ago, after months of battle to encircle the northern city.
In the east of the city, they hold the Al-Meshleb neighborhood, captured days after the operation inside the city began, and on Sunday they seized their first district in the west, Al-Rumaniya.
On Monday, fighting was continuing on both fronts, with the SDF advancing quickly in the eastern neighborhood of Al-Senaa, which leads to the Old City of Raqqa, according to the Observatory.
"The SDF forces now control 70 percent of Al-Senaa" next to Al-Meshleb, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"If they take Al-Senaa it will be the most important advance in the battle for Raqqa because it brings them to the centre of the city where the most important ISIS positions are," said Abdel Rahman.
More than 465,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad. (With AFP)
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