BEIRUT: US-led coalition strikes on Sunday killed 27 civilians in part of Syria’s Raqa city held by the militant Islamic State group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

Seven children were among the dead in the strikes that “hit the densely-populated Al-Badu area in the centre of the city,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said on Monday.

Once a jihadist stronghold, more than half of Raqa city has fallen to the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that entered the city in June.

The SDF is heavily backed by the US-led coalition, which has regularly launched air strikes against the jihadists that have reportedly killed scores of civilians.

According to the Britain-based Observatory, at least 125 civilians have been killed in a week of US-led strikes on Raqa city, including those who died on Sunday.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2017