Air strike kills more than a dozen in Syria, SOHR and regime says

The Syrian regime blames the US-led coalition for the strike in Qusur district under its control. The US-led coalition says it had not carried out such a raid.

File photo shows an air strike conducted by the US-led coalition against Daesh in Syria.
Reuters

File photo shows an air strike conducted by the US-led coalition against Daesh in Syria.

An air raid in the regime-held Qusur district of Deir Ezzor city in eastern Syria killed more than a dozen people, a war monitor and the regime-run television said on Monday.

Regime television said jets from a US-led international coalition battling Daesh carried out the air strike and that it killed 14 civilians and wounded 32 others.

A spokesman for the coalition said on Tuesday it had not carried out such a raid, and that its only strike in the vicinity in recent weeks took place in September across the Euphrates from the city.

The war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that it was not known which aircraft carried out the strike, but that at least 22 people were killed.

Deir Ezzor: Contested Region Between US Coalition, Daesh and Syrian regime

The Syrian regime army, backed by Russia, Iran and Hash al Shaabi militias, is fighting Daesh in the city of Deir Ezzor, as well as in parts of the surrounding countryside. 

Both Syrian and Russian jets have been hitting Daesh in that area.

The SDF, which is dominated by YPG militants, has focused on territory east of the river, which bisects the oil-rich Deir Ezzor province.

Despite the YPG’s links with the PKK, which is on the US, EU and Turkey's terror list, Washington considers the militia to be a key ally in the battle against Daesh in Syria.

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