Beirut : A wave of air strikes killed at least 39 civilians on Saturday in Raqa, the main stronghold of the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, a monitoring group said.
At least five children and seven women were among the dead in IS's de facto capital in the north of the war-ravaged country, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Five members of IS's self-styled police force were also killed and 60 people were wounded, some critically, according to the monitor, which relies on a network of sources on the ground.
The raids came a day after 16 civilians were killed in strikes on the same city.
"We cannot know whether the latest strikes on Raqa are by Syrian or Russian warplanes," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
"What is clear is that their goal is to try to paralyse IS and to stop it from deploying reinforcements from Raqa to the Palmyra area," he told AFP.
IS seized Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Pearl of the Desert", last May.
In September, satellite images confirmed that Palmyra's famed Temple of Bel had been targeted by IS as part of a campaign to destroy pre-Islamic monuments, tombs and statues it considers idolatrous.
UN experts said the main building of the temple as well as a row of columns had been destroyed.
In recent weeks, Syrian troops backed by the Russian air force have been pressing an advance to try to reclaim the ancient city.
