Four years of coalition strikes on Syria kill 3,300 civilians: monitor

Beirut : More than 3,000 civilians have been killed in US-led coalition air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria since they began four years ago, a monitor said yesterday. The Washington-led alliance puts the toll at just over 1,000 civilians in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and says it does all it can to prevent civilian deaths.

The coalition began bombing IS targets in Iraq in August 2014 after the jihadist group seized swathes of territory straddling the two countries, proclaiming an Islamic “caliphate”. The coalition extended its strikes to Syria on September 23, 2014.