Beirut: US-led air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria have killed more than 1,600 people, mainly jihadists, since they began five months ago, a monitor said on Monday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said almost all of those killed were jihadists from IS and Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front, though it also documented the deaths of 62 civilians.
The Britain-based monitor said the strikes that began on September 23 had killed 1,465 members of the Islamic State group, most of them non-Syrians. Another 73 fighters from Al-Nusra Front were killed, along with a man from a rebel group being held prisoner by IS in the group’s de facto Raqa.
Washington and a small coalition of Arab countries began strikes against IS in Syria last year, expanding US-led operations with a broader coalition already underway against IS in Iraq. Meanwhile, US defense secretary Ashton Carter convened an extraordinary war council on Monday on Iraq’s doorstep, six days after taking office, to discuss the nitty-gritty of the administration’s oft-criticised strategy for countering the IS and probe for gaps and weaknesses.
The Army general commanding the war effort in Iraq and Syria, meanwhile, said the IS’ fighters are “halted, on the defensive” in Iraq and facing a new counterattack by Iraqi forces in Anbar province to retake a town the militants seized earlier this month.
