U.S., allies stage 15 air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq, Syria -U.S.

U.S. military forces again focused air strikes on the area near the Syrian city of Kobani in their campaign to turn back Islamic State forces and also hit oil facilities held by the militant group, the U.S. Central Command said on Thursday.       

A total of 15 strikes were staged against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a statement from Central Command.         

The statement said U.S. fighter and bomber aircraft staged four strikes near the key border city of Kobani, destroying an Islamic State control center and fighting positions in an area that has often been targeted this month, and two more that knocked out oil tanks east of Dawr Az Zawr.         

Four air strikes by U.S. and allied forces in Iraq near the vital Mosul Dam hit small Islamic State units and destroyed a vehicle while another attack near Bayji took out a fighting position. Four strikes in the Fallujah area targeted a training facility, a larger Islamic State unit and a building.        

All aircraft involved in the strikes returned safely, the statement said.

Air strikes by U.S.-led forces have killed 521 Islamist fighters and 32 civilians during a month-long campaign in Syria, a monitoring group which tracks the violence said earlier on Thursday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the vast majority of the deaths, 464, were militants from Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot which has grabbed large areas of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The attacks also killed 57 members of the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, the Observatory said. Six of the civilians were children and five were women, it added.

The United States has been carrying out strikes in Iraq against Islamic State since July and in Syria since September with the help of Arab allies. Britain and France have also struck Islamic State targets in Iraq.

Washington justified its action in Syria under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which covers an individual or collective right to self-defense against armed attack.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said on Saturday that Washington took "reports of civilian casualties or damage to civilian facilities seriously and we have a process to investigate each allegation."

Close to 200,000 people have been killed in Syria's three-year civil war, according to the United Nations.

Coalition strikes have hit the Syrian provinces of Aleppo, Deir al-Zor, Idlib, Raqqa and al-Hassakah, the Observatory said.


REUTERS