The US-led coalition has killed as many as 150 Islamic State fighters in an operation in the middle Euphrates River Valley in Syria, officials said Tuesday.

According to a statement from the coalition, the air strikes took place Saturday near Al-Shafah, in Deir Ezzor province, on an IS headquarters where the jihadists appeared to have been “massing for movement.”

“The precision strikes were a culmination of extensive intelligence preparation to confirm an ISIS headquarters and command and control center in an exclusively ISIS-occupied location in the contested Middle Euphrates River Valley,” the statement read.

While IS has lost most of the terrain they once controlled in Syria, they still remain entrenched in pockets along the middle Euphrates River Valley.

“We are continuing to go after those guys that are trying to reestablish themselves. It’s a hard fight right now.”

The coalition said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance fighting IS, had assisted in target observation prior to the strike.

“The combination of intelligence and continuous eyes on the target ensured no accidental engagement of non-military personnel,” the statement read. </s> WASHINGTON: The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said it killed nearly 150 militants in strikes carried out on Saturday in the Syrian middle Euphrates River Valley.

"The precision strikes were a culmination of extensive intelligence preparation to confirm an ISIS headquarters and command and control center in an exclusively ISIS-occupied location in the contested middle Euphrates River Valley," a statement issued on Tuesday said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

The statement said the strikes took place near As Shafah, Syria and killed between 145 and 150 militants. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption US-led air strikes helped Kurdish and Arab fighters capture the IS stronghold of Raqqa last year

The US-led coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) says it has killed up to 150 militants in air strikes on a headquarters in Syria.

A statement said the strikes took place on Saturday near al-Shafah, in the Middle Euphrates river valley in the south-eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

A combination of intelligence and continuous target observation ensured no civilians were harmed, it added.

There was no confirmation of the attack from IS or its supporters.

However, the group's Amaq news agency did say 14 people, including seven women, were killed in US air strikes that targeted al-Shafah on Tuesday.

The activist-run Deirezzor24 website also said the village was hit that day.

The coalition says the group has lost 98% of the territory that it seized across Iraq and Syria in 2014, when it proclaimed the creation of a "caliphate".

IS now controls only small pockets of land in Syria, including a part of the Euphrates valley, where it is under attack by a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as well as Syrian pro-government forces supported by Russia and Iran.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption IS and how it continues to plague Iraq

The coalition statement said the "precision strikes" on the IS headquarters and command-and-control centre near al-Shafah came after an extensive intelligence operation that included SDF fighters assisting in target observation.

"The combination of intelligence and continuous eyes on the target ensured no accidental engagement of non-military personnel," it added.

Militants were "massing for movement" at the headquarters before it was hit, according to the coalition, which said between 145 and 150 were killed.

"The strikes underscore our assertion that the fight to liberate Syria is far from over," said Maj Gen James Jarrard, commander of special operations for the coalition.

"Our SDF partners are still making daily progress and sacrifices, and together we are still finding, targeting and killing [IS] terrorists intent on keeping their extremist hold on the region."

The comments from the general came as Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels continued an offensive against the Kurdish militia that dominates the SDF - the People's Protection Units (YPG) - in the north-western border region of Afrin.

Turkey says the militia is an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for decades. The YPG denies any direct organisational links with the PKK. </s> Air strikes killed at least 23 civilians including 10 children in a village held by the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

“We don’t know for the moment if the US-led international coalition or Iraqi forces carried out the strike” on the village of Al-Qasr in Hasakeh province, the Observatory said.

The Britain-based monitor relies on a network of sources on the ground for its information.

The US-led coalition, which is backing a Kurdish-Arab alliance fighting IS near Syria’s eastern border with Iraq, denied it carried out the strikes.

“There are no strikes in that area reflected in the… strike logs as of today,” the coalition said in a written response to AFP.

Iraq has also previously carried out strikes against IS jihadists in Syria, including a raid last month in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

The jihadists have lost much of the territory they once controlled in Syria and Iraq since declaring a cross-border caliphate there in 2014.

In Syria, they have faced two separate offensives — one by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces alliance and a second by Russia-backed regime fighters.

In February, US-led coalition air raids killed 25 civilians including seven children in the village of Shaafah in Deir Ezzor province and surrounding areas, according to the Observatory.

The coalition says it takes every precaution to avoid civilian casualties.

Last week, it acknowledged the deaths of 28 civilians in Iraq and Syria in 2017.

That increased its overall death toll of non-fighters killed in coalition strikes since 2014 in both countries to at least 883.

Monitoring group Airwars says the true toll of the bombing campaign is much higher, estimating that at least 6,259 civilians have been killed. </s> Fifteen civilians were killed after residential areas of the settlement of al-Shaaf in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor became a target of the US-led coalition's air strikes on Tuesday, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.

According to the media, 7 women are among those killed as a result of the attack, whereas some people are seriously injured.

The US-led coalition is fighting Daesh in Syria, however, not only militants turn out to be targeted during its operations.

On December 14, the Syrian Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the UN Security Council and to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accusing the US-led coalition of killing civilians in the province of Deir Ez-Zor by airstrikes, according to local media. </s> US-led coalition’s air strikes kill at least 25 civilians in Syria

The US-led coalition’s air strikes have killed at least 25 civilians in the Syrian province of Al-Hasakah, leaving dozens wounded, TASS with reference to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Tuesday.

According to SANA, on Tuesday morning, air strikes were carried out on the Al-Fadl settlement located near the city of Al-Shaddadi. There are two elderly people among the victims, as well as women and children. Several residential dwellings have been destroyed, SANA reported.

Follow Trend on Telegram. Only most interesting and important news </s> A US-led coalition air strike in northwestern Syria killed a top leader of al-Qaeda splinter group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham on Wednesday (18 January). Four other militants of the group were also killed in the strike on Idlib governorate, local reports said.

Abu Ibrahim al-Tunsi, the Tunisian jihadist, was reportedly a leading member of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly the al-Nusra Front.

"The air raid hit al-Tunsi's convoy in the Aqrabat district in Idlib," an activist told ARA News. However, coalition forces and the militant group are yet to confirm the leader's death.

US-led forces have targeted the splinter group's leadership in Syria in the past as well. In early January, the coalition succeeded in eliminating Abu Omar al-Turkistani, a military commander, and Abu Ali al-Tunsi, a security official. In 2016, coalition strikes killed Abu Afghan al-Masri, an Egyptian, Abu Faraj al-Masri, also an Egyptian, and Abu Omar Saraqeb, a Syrian jihadist, all leading the militant group in different capacities, the news agency reported.

Meanwhile, coalition forces also targeted Islamic State (Isis) positions in Iraq and Syria as part of their ongoing operation Inherent Resolve. In Syria, the coalition conducted 17 strikes near Abu Kamal, al-Bab, Raqqa, Ayn Isa and Dayr Az Zawr, destroying several tactical units, supply routes and oil wellheads.

The coalition also conducted six strikes in Iraq on Wednesday, mainly on Mosul, destroying three tunnel entrances, two vehicles, three vehicle-borne bombs, three barges, a watercraft, three fighting positions, three tactical vehicles, two mortars and an artillery piece, a tunnel, a fighting position, and 29 supply routes, the Pentagon said in a statement. </s> GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief called on all air forces operating in Syria on Friday to take greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians in their escalating air strikes especially in the northeast against Islamic State.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein of Jordan address a news conference during his visit in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

“The rising toll of civilian deaths and injuries already caused by airstrikes in Deir-ez-Zor and Al-Raqqa suggests that insufficient precautions may have been taken in the attacks,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

Air strikes in mid-May killed nearly two dozen farmworkers, most of them women, in a village in eastern Raqqa and at least 59 civilians in residential areas of Deir al-Zor, Zeid said.

An air strike on Thursday evening killed at least 35 civilians, including family members of Islamic State fighters, in al-Mayadin, a town held by the jihadists near Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria, a war monitor reported.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State told Reuters that its forces had conducted strikes near al-Mayadin on May 25 and 26 and were assessing the results.

Zeid’s spokesman Rupert Colville told a Geneva briefing on Friday: “There are multiple air forces operating in this part of Syria including the (U.S.-led) coalition, mainly the coalition. We also understand that there are Iraqi airplanes as well.”

“I can’t begin to identify who is responsible,” he added.

Islamic State forces, fighting to keep their stronghold in northeast Syria, have carried out summary executions of civilians, including slitting the throats of eight men at sites of air strikes after accusing them or providing coordinates, Zeid said.

“Unfortunately, scant attention is being paid by the outside world to the appalling predicament of the civilians trapped in these areas,” he added.

The U.N. human rights office also voiced concern at credible reports that Islamic State is preventing civilians from leaving areas under their control, noting that this violated international law.

“Unfortunately there is little doubt that ISIL (Islamic State) continues constantly to kill and endanger civilians, committing war crimes without any compunction whatsoever,” Zeid said. </s> ISIL fighters shot down a Syrian military plane in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Az Zor, the group's Amaq news agency reported on Sunday.

"A Syrian warplane belonging to the Syrian regime was brought down when targeted by fighters from the Islamic State in the city of Deir al-Zor," Amaq said in an online statement.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, said the pilot of the MiG Syrian warplane was killed.

US air raid on Syrian army post sparks Russia tension

Earlier in the day, Syrian state news agency SANA reported that government troops had regained territory in the eastern province lost to fighters affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) "as a result of the American aircraft aggression".

The US military said it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against ISIL in Deir Az Zor on Saturday.

Russia's military said it was told by the Syrian army that at least 62 soldiers were killed and more than 100 wounded in the raid in the Jabal Tharda area of Deir Az Zor.

The Observatory said on Sunday the plane came down in the same area, which overlooks the government's Deir Az Zor military airport.

The city's airport and some government-held districts have been entirely surrounded by ISIL since last year, with the airport providing the only external access.

Heavy air strikes over the past 24 hours have hit ISIL-controlled areas near Deir Az Zor city, according to the Observatory and Syrian state media.
The U.S.-led coalition against ISIL says it has killed up to 150 militants in air strikes on a headquarters in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria.