Shelling killed 19 civilians on Sunday as Syria's Kurds fought a fierce battle against jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) in the north-eastern province of Hasakeh, a monitoring group said. Among the civilians killed in Hajiyeh and Tal Khalil villages were five children, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The deaths came as the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) advanced in their fight against IS, seizing a string of villages around jihadist bastion Tal Hamis, which is strategically important because of its proximity to the main Kurdish city of Qamishli.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP the YPG, backed by Arab tribesmen opposed to IS, and IS fighters were using "all kinds of shells" to target opposing positions in the fighting. "It is impossible to confirm who was behind the shelling that killed the 19 civilians," he said.