Dozens dead in US-led north Syria strike as coalition ups support

BEIRUT — A US-led coalition strike is reported to have killed 33 civilians in northern Syria, as the Pentagon on Wednesday announced reinforcements to allies battling the Daesh terror group in Raqqa.

The suspected coalition air raid hit a school being used as a temporary shelter for displaced families between Daesh’s main stronghold in Raqqa city and Tabaqa, a key town it controls further west. 

The US-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes against Daesh in Syria since 2014 and on Wednesday upped the ante with airlifts and fire support for allied forces on the ground, the Pentagon said. 

Senior diplomats from the 68-member alliance met in Washington on Wednesday to hear details of US President Donald Trump's promised tough new strategy to eradicate the extremist group in Iraq and Syria.

As they gathered, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said a coalition air strike early Tuesday had killed dozens near the town of Al Mansura, about 30 kilometres  west of Raqqa. 

"We can now confirm that 33 people were killed, and they were displaced civilians from Raqqa, Aleppo and Homs," said observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. "Only two people were pulled out alive."

 A statement from the coalition said it had carried out 18 strikes near Raqqa on Tuesday, and a Pentagon spokesman said the coalition would investigate the reported deaths. 

"Since we have conducted several strikes near Raqqa we will provide this information to our civilian casualty team for further investigation," he said.

"Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently", an activist group that publishes news from Daesh-held territory in Syria, blamed the coalition for the strike. 

"The school that was targeted hosts nearly 50 displaced families," it said. 

Earlier this month, the coalition said its campaign in Syria and Iraq had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians, but monitors say the real number is far higher. 

Airlifts, artillery 

In addition to its aerial sorties, the US has several hundred troops on the ground in Syria supporting the anti-Daesh offensive by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),  an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters. 

An SDF commander told AFP on Wednesday that US troops had been airlifted in to back the battle for Tabaqa, a key town on the Euphrates River where senior Daesh commanders are based and where the group’s Western hostages were once held. 

“US forces and fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces were helicoptered to 15 kilometres west of Tabaqa,” which lies on the southern bank of the Euphrates River, an SDF commander told AFP. 

Allied SDF fighters also crossed in boats from their positions on the northern bank of the river to meet up with the US forces on the southern bank.

A US defence official said Wednesday, under condition of anonymity, that US artillery was being used in the operation to seize the Tabaqa dam. 

Another official, Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway, said “coalition forces are assisting... with airlift and fire support in an operation to seize the Tabaqa dam.”

 Top officials with the US-led coalition began meeting in Washington to hear more about a revised anti-Daesh plan drafted by the Pentagon and presented to Trump in February.

At the start of the talks, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi will inevitably be killed as coalition and local forces continue to pile pressure on the extremists.

“Nearly all of Abu Bakr Baghdadi’s deputies are now dead, including the mastermind behind the attacks in Brussels, Paris and elsewhere,” Tillerson said. “It is only a matter of time before Baghdadi himself meets this same fate.”

Daesh is under pressure from several directions in northern Syria, with Russia supporting its Syrian ally President Bashar Al Assad on one front and Turkey providing air cover for rebel groups battling the fighters on another. 

Control of war-ravaged Syria is divided between myriad armed groups — rebels, extremists, Kurdish militia and Syrian government forces.

Years of diplomatic efforts have failed to end Syria’s raging six-year conflict, which began with protests against Assad’s regime in 2011 but has since killed 320,000 people. 

This week, rebels and allied extremists launched two surprise offensives on government positions in Damascus and central Hama province, opposition groups and the observatory said.

The escalating violence comes just a day before a new round of UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva hosted by UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura.

In Moscow, on Wednesday, for final meetings before the talks, de Mistura said the developments “raise concerns”.

“We must seek to achieve a political process as quickly as possible,” he said.

De Mistura will travel to rebel backer Ankara on Thursday and will then return to Switzerland to lead the talks.