Air strikes by the US-led coalition killed 13 jihadist fighters and 14 of their relatives Friday in eastern Syria, a war monitor said. The strikes came two days after US President Donald Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria raised fears the Islamic State group would use the vacuum to regroup.
"At least 27 people were killed this morning in Al-Shaafa," Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP. He said eight children were among the 14 civilian victims and added several people were seriously wounded in the strikes.
The raids targeted IS positions in Al-Shaafa, one of the two main villages in the last pocket of territory still controlled by IS in the Euphrates River valley.