Russian, US-led strikes kill 28 in Syria

BEIRUT: Separate Russian and US-led coalition air strikes on Tuesday killed 28 civilians in Syria’s eastern Deir al Zor province, where rival offensives against the IS group are under way, a monitor said. The province lies along Syria’s border with Iraq and is seen as a strategic prize by both Russian-backed Syrian troops and an alliance of Arab and Kurdish forces supported by the US-led air coalition. On Tuesday, deadly coalition raids struck the village of Al Shahabat, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “Coalition air strikes killed 12 members of a single family, among them five children, in a village on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. He said fierce fighting between IS and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces was raging around IS-held Al Shahabat, which lies around 7 km away from the river. The Euphrates slices across Deir al Zor province diagonally. Syrian government troops are fighting across the river on its western side as part of a separate assault that is backed by Moscow. Russian air strikes on Tuesday hit a cluster of tents on the western banks of the Euphrates, killing “16 civilians including five children,” according to Abdel Rahman. — Reuters