{"id":478,"date":"2017-03-09T18:04:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T18:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=478"},"modified":"2017-03-09T18:04:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T18:04:44","slug":"suspected-coalition-raids-kill-23-civilians-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2017\/03\/09\/suspected-coalition-raids-kill-23-civilians-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspected coalition raids ‘kill 23 civilians’ in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al Jazeera:\u00a0<\/strong>At least 23 civilians, including eight children, have been killed in air raids on an ISIL-held village in northern Syria, according to a monitor.<\/p>\n

The fighter jets that carried out the strikes were believed to belong to the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL\/ISIS) armed group,\u00a0the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“The raids hit the village of al-Matab after midnight and were likely carried out by the coalition,” according to Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory.<\/p>\n

At least six women were also among the dead in al-Matab, which lies\u00a0near a key road linking Raqqa – ISIL’s de facto capital – to Deir Az Zor city, the capital of the adjacent oil-rich province.<\/p>\n

On Monday, fighters from the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) cut off that route in an effort to encircle the the ISIL fighters in Raqqa.<\/p>\n

The US-led coalition has been backing the SDF’s drive for Raqqa with air power and hundreds of special operations forces as advisers.<\/p>\n

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, launched its offensive for Raqqa in early November, and has since seized swaths of territory in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

But its advance has angered Turkey,\u00a0which sees the umbrella group’s dominant YPG militia (People’s Protection Units) – as an extension of Kurdish PKK fighters. The PKK has waged a three-decade conflict in southeastern Turkey.<\/p>\n

The profusion of forces operating in Syria – particularly in its fractured north – has led to a deeply complex battlefield and tensions between different parties.<\/p>\n

The US-led coalition fighting ISIL in Syria and Iraq said earlier this month that its raids had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians since 2014 in both countries.<\/p>\n

Critics say the real number is much higher.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Syria, fighter jets pounded the rebel-held city of Kfranbel in Idlib province, killing at least four people, according to activists at the scene.<\/p>\n

Media activist Hadi al-Abdullah said four air strikes on civilian areas in Kfranbel left heavy damage and killed at least two children.<\/p>\n

He said dozens of others were wounded in the early-morning raids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al Jazeera:\u00a0At least 23 civilians, including eight children, have been killed in air raids on an ISIL-held village in northern Syria, according to a monitor. The fighter jets that carried out the strikes were believed to belong to the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL\/ISIS) armed group,\u00a0the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,77,4,70],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-civilian","tag-coalition","tag-syria","tag-syrian-civil-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}