(Zaman Al Wasl)- US-led coalition air strikes killed 26 civilians including 14 children Friday in a holdout of the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, a Britain-based war monitor said.
"Twenty-six IS family members including 14 children and 9 women were killed in coalition air strikes on Friday morning on the town of Hajin," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
On Thursday, coalition raids killed another seven civilians in the nearby village of Al-Shaafa, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Both Hajin and Al-Shaafa are in a last pocket under IS control in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor near the border with Iraq.
The coalition has been backing a Kurdish-Arab alliance fighting the jihadists in the area.
IS overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" in land it controlled.
But the jihadist group has since lost most of it to various offensives in both countries.
In Syria, the group has seen its presence reduced to parts of the vast Badia desert and the pocket in Deir Ezzor.
Since 2014 the US-led coalition has acknowledged direct responsibility for more than 1,100 civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq, but rights groups put the number killed much higher.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says coalition strikes in Syria alone have killed more than 3,300 civilians.
Activist Raed al-Ali said the heavy aerial bombing hit last Daesh pockets near the Iraqi border, using white phosphorus.
15 more people have lost their lives in landmine explosion near the town of al-Hajin.
In the four years since the coalition began its bombing campaign against the extremist group there, the Syrian Observatory said strikes have killed about 3,400 civilians.
Among that number were 826 children and 615 women, the Observatory said.
ISIS swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014, capturing large swathes of territory in a lightning offensive that caught the international community by surprise. It took control of major cities in both countries, including Mosul and Raqqa, ruling over 10 million people at its peak.
Since the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011, more than 470,000 people have been killed, and more than 6 million people have been displaced.
Zaman Al Wasl, Agencies
Zaman Al Wasl
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