US-led air strikes on Syria ISIL targets ‘kill 1,600’
Monitor says armed fighters make up most of the dead, but has documented deaths of 62 civilians since operations began.
US-led air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Syria have killed more than 1,600 people since they began five months ago, a monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that almost all of those killed were fighters from ISIL and al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front, though it also documented the deaths of 62 civilians.
Keep reading
list of 4 itemsMoscow theatre attack suspects show signs of beating in court
Four men showing signs of severe beating charged over Moscow concert attack
Russia mourns Moscow concert hall attack victims as death toll rises to 137
The Britain-based monitor said the strikes that began on September 23 had killed 1,465 members of ISIL, most of them non-Syrians.
Another 73 fighters from al-Nusra Front were killed, along with a man from a rebel group being held prisoner by ISIL in the group’s de facto capital Raqa.
Washington and a small coalition of Arab countries began strikes against ISIL in Syria last year, expanding US-led operations with a broader coalition already under way against ISIL in Iraq.
ISIL emerged in Syria in 2013, growing from al-Qaeda’s former Iraqi affiliate.
But it broke with al-Qaeda and declared an Islamic “caliphate” in territory it controls in Syria and Iraq, attracting a steady stream of foreign fighters and carrying out abuses including beheadings.