A US-led coalition strike is reported to have killed 33 civilians in northern Syria ahead of a Wednesday meeting of top officials in Washington focused on defeating the Islamic State group. The Pentagon said the US military is providing air and artillery support to allied forces near a key town west of Raqa, IS's main Syrian stronghold, ahead of a major offensive against the jihadists.
A suspected coalition strike in the northern province of Raqa early Tuesday has killed 33 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The monitor said Wednesday that the strike hit a school being used as a temporary shelter for displaced families, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Raqa.
"We can now confirm that 33 people were killed, and they were displaced civilians from Raqa, Aleppo and Homs," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. "Only two people were pulled out alive." A Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday said the coalition would investigate the alleged strike. "Since we have conducted several strikes near Raqa we will provide this information to our civilian casualty team for further investigation," he said.
"Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently," an activist group that publishes news from IS-held territory in Syria, blamed the coalition for the strike. "The school that was targeted hosts nearly 50 displaced families," it said. Earlier this month, the coalition said its campaign in Syria and Iraq had unintentionally killed at least 220 civilians, but monitors say the real number is far higher.
Top officials from the 68-nation alliance began meeting in Washington to hear more about a revised anti-IS plan drafted by the Pentagon and presented to US President Donald Trump in February. At the start of the talks, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will inevitably be killed as coalition and local forces continue to pile pressure on the jihadists. "Nearly all of Abu Bakr Baghdadi's deputies are now dead, including the mastermind behind the attacks in Brussels, Paris and elsewhere," Tillerson said. "It is only a matter of time before Baghdadi himself meets this same fate."