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The US-led anti-jihadist coalition fought back on reports that its airstrikes on an Islamic State group in eastern Syria had killed civilians, seeming to blame their deaths. to the forces of the regime.
More than seven years after the beginning of the civil war in the country, multiple offensives fell on Syrian-controlled territory of Syrian territory, into a pocket of the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, on the Iraqi border.
An alliance led by Kurds and supported by the coalition is fighting to expel ISIS from this pillar, on the east bank of the Euphrates.
Russian-backed regime forces fought jihadists in the west of the river.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Saturday's coalition strikes had killed 43 people, including 36 family members of ISIL fighters in the Abu village. al-Husn.
But the coalition denied that his air raids there had killed non-combatants.
The US envoy for the coalition, Brett McGurk, appeared Sunday to blame the regime's forces stationed "across the river" for civilian casualties.
"Reports of civilian casualties attributable to coalition strikes are false, and all other forces must immediately stop uncoordinated fires on the other side of the river," he said on Twitter.
In a statement released Saturday night, the coalition reported 19 coalition strikes against the Islamic State "free of any civilian presence" between Friday and Saturday afternoon in the jihadist enclave, which includes the Hajin city.
The coalition's first assessment following the strikes was that there was no evidence of civilians being near the strikes, "he said.
But the coalition "has detected a total of ten additional strikes in the same area of Hajin that did not come from the coalition or partner forces," the text adds.
He called on "all other actors to stop uncoordinated fires across the Euphrates".
The Observatory, a British-based war observer, said the regime's forces and IS fighters had exchanged gunfire Saturday across the river, but that the bombing was going on. Government had not touched Abu al-Husn.
The US-led international coalition has consistently denied reports from the Observatory in recent days that its air raids have killed civilians.
He says that he takes seriously the allegations of civilian casualties and that he is conducting a thorough investigation on each of them.
ISIS invaded vast expanses of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" over the lands it controlled.
But the jihadist group has since lost most of its strength to the offensives of several forces in both countries.
On Saturday, Syrian regime forces regained control of the group's latest attack in the south of the country as jihadists retreated into the desert after months of fighting, the Observatory said.
The war in Syria has killed more than 360,000 people since its outbreak in 2011 with the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
Since 2014, the US-led coalition has recognized the direct responsibility of more than 1,100 civilians killed in Syria and Iraq, but the number of human rights defenders is much higher.
Syrian Democratic Forces fighter observes US-led coalition helicopter overflying Syrian city of Shadadi on September 11, 2018
