Syrian regime forces step up air attacks, killing more than 50

U.S. forces and their allies staged nearly 40 airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria over the past two days, as Syrian regime aircraft were blamed for killing more than 50 people, most of them civilians, in airstrikes on two ISIS-held towns, The Daily Star reported.

Coalition fighters, bombers and remotely controlled aircraft hit 19 targets in Syria while 20 strikes were carried out in Iraq, a statement by the Combined Joint Task Force said Friday. In Syria, 17 strikes were concentrated on an area near the border town of Ain al-Arab and destroyed several ISIS buildings, vehicles and fighting positions.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based, anti-regime monitoring group, said Kurdish forces defending the city, known widely as Kobani in Kurdish, made gains against ISIS militants in fierce clashes as three coalition airstrikes struck the jihadis’ positions.

Two airstrikes near Hassakeh and one near Raqqa also caused damage, the task force said.

In Iraq, the strikes hit near Al-Asad, Sinjar, Mosul, Al-Qaim, Beiji, Kirkuk, Fallujah and Tal Afar, the statement said.

There was no word on casualties from the strikes, but the Observatory said coalition airstrikes in the area of Raqqa on Wednesday killed at least 40 ISIS militants and a number of family members, when the strikes hit a housing area and a center for making explosive devices.

On the road linking Ain al-Arab to Aleppo, two days of airstrikes by Syrian regime aircraft killed at least 53 people, including seven children, in the town of Al-Bab and the neighboring village of Qabbasin.

Activists uploaded video of the strikes’ aftermaths to social networks. An earlier toll was given as 37 fatalities, and dozens of people were seriously wounded in the strikes.

Helicopters dropped crude “barrel bombs” on residential and industrial areas, locals said.

“People were going about scraping a living and there were no armed groups in the market, only poor people. Why is Assad killing us? May God bring vengeance on him,” said Youssef al-Saadi, a resident of Qabbasin and a volunteer with the local civil defense group who was contacted on Skype.