At least 33 people killed in coalition strike on school used as refugee centre near jihadi-held town in northern province of Raqqa, says monitor

An airstrike by the US-led coalition against Islamic State on a school west of the Syrian city of Raqqa has killed at least 33 people, many of whom had fled nearby fighting, sparking further concerns that new rules of engagements may be causing an increase in civilian casualties.

The attack follows a separate US strike on a mosque complex in the north-west of the country last Saturday that killed at least 52 people. The incident triggered fears that a White House-ordered review of rules governing the use of drones had already given military planners more flexibility on ordering strikes.

Activists in Syria said the attack on the school took place in the same area where US-backed Kurdish forces had begun an operation on Wednesday to separate the town of Tabqa from Isis’s last urban stronghold in Syria.

“There were only two survivors from this,” said one witness. “And they have still been buried. Most of these people, maybe all of them, had taken shelter in this building from the fighting and the planes. They were hiding for their lives.”

Donald Trump has pledged to ease restrictions on how and when US drones can be used and signalled a tougher approach to targeting Isis and al-Qada franchises in northern Syria.

As US troops and their proxies began an offensive west of Raqqa, fears mounted that the new posture had led to fewer restrictions on what could be targeted in active war zones, such as Syria and Iraq.

“There has not been a decree to that effect yet,” said a senior regional military source. “But there has been a definite change in mood. Often that is all it takes.”

If approved, the changes being sought by Trump would mean the Pentagon could approve attacks without presidential consent and the threshold of “near certainty” that there be no civilian deaths would be open to potentially looser interpretation.

The US military has acknowledged that warplanes flown under the coalition banner were active in the area on Tuesday and pledged to investigate whether civilians were among those killed. It also admitted to carrying out the strike in Idlib, which it said targeted an al-Qaida planning meeting, but denied that the building hit had been a mosque.

Images from the site and witness accounts confirmed the targeted building had been part of a mosque compound.

Over the past eight months, there have been four cases in which US planes or drones have been blamed for mass civilian casualties in Syria. The first strike occurred last July near the town of Manbij, which, at the time, was being recaptured from Isis. Up to 150 civilians are thought to have died in the attack, the single deadliest strike since late 2014.

Since then, up to 3,500 civilians have been killed in the north of the country by a Russian and Syrian air campaign.

The US has conducted nearly 3,000 airstrikes against Isis targets in northern Syria, with thousands more in Iraq in support of national forces.

Barack Obama defined the US role as partnering with local militaries and proxies and acting in support of them. President Trump appears to have given his commanders more latitude to take leading roles.

The defence secretary, Jim Mattis, a former commander of the US Marine Corps, ordered 500 marines to be deployed north of Syria to provide artillery fire in support of an eventual ground operation.

In the meantime, Iraqi forces, backed by US airstrikes continue to press into a pivotal neighbourhood of the Iraqi city of Mosul. By Wednesday night, they were several hundred metres away from the Grand Mosque, where Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself leader of a caliphate almost three years ago.

At least two-thirds of Mosul has been recaptured from Isis and what remains of the organisation there has been confined to the north-west of the city. Nearly six months into the war to reclaim Iraq’s second biggest city, there are growing hopes that the battle may be finished before the onset of summer, allowing focus to be switched to Raqqa – potentially the last major battle fought against Isis.

“We are getting there now,” said an Iraqi colonel whose troops were supporting the push on the Grand Mosque. “Every yard they have had to fight for and I know they have surprises waiting. Any civilian that can get out, we are grateful for.

“The conditions there are very tough. We are trying to do everything we can to protect them. But Isis are not.”</s>DAMASCUS (Sputnik) — In a letter to the UN Secretary-General and the President of the UN Security Council, cited by the SANA news agency, the ministry said the airstrike was a regular episode of "aggressive" actions by the coalition against Syria's sovereignty under the pretext of the fight against terrorism.

Activist groups reported on Tuesday that a coalition strike on a school outside Raqqa killed and injured dozens of internally-displaced people who were sheltering in the building.

Syria's SANA news service said the building was located south of the town of Mansour, about 19 miles west of Raqqa.

Unverified reports estimated up to 33 people may have been killed in the strike.

The daily coalition strike report issued for Tuesday listed 18 strikes near Raqqa, including three that hit buildings. Two buildings were described as held by Daesh, and a third was said to be Daesh headquarters.</s>A London-based activist and monitoring group said Wednesday that a U.S.-led coalition airstrike had hit a school in ISIS-held territory in northern Syria that was being used to shelter displaced families, killing dozens of civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which relies on an extensive network of contacts on the ground in Syria and which generally proves a reliable source of information on the war, said coalition aircraft carried out the strike but did not explain how it reached that conclusion.

The coalition has targeted ISIS militants and infrastructure in and around the northern Syrian city of Raqqa for months. It is the terror group’s last major urban stronghold in Syria and its self-declared capital.

Russian aircraft have also carried out one or two strikes in the area in recent months, but have largely focused on targeting groups other than ISIS. Both U.S. and Russian-backed factions on the ground are battling ISIS in an effort aimed at eventually retaking Raqqa.

The Wednesday strike reportedly hit a school in the town of Mansoura, about 15 miles southwest of central Raqqa.

“We can now confirm that 33 people were killed, and they were displaced civilians from Raqqa, Aleppo and Homs,” SOHR director Rami Abdel Rahman told the French news agency AFP. They’re still pulling bodies out of the rubble until now. Only two people were pulled out alive.”

A second activist and monitoring group, “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently,” also reported the airstrike on the school, saying as many as 50 displaced families were being sheltered in the building.

The U.S.-led coalition did not confirm the strikes and there was no immediate indication from officials which nation’s aircraft were involved.

The reports about the strike in Mansoura come less than a month after the same monitoring groups said a U.S.-led coalition aircraft had hit a village just east of Raqqa, killing at least 20 civilians.

About 200 U.S. Marines deployed into Syria with heavy artillery in early March as part of preparations for the fight to oust ISIS from Raqqa. Pentagon officials said that was a long-planned increase in presence, and not part of an anticipated ramping-up of operations against ISIS that President Trump and his senior military commanders are still hashing out.</s>Dozens Of Civilians Killed Near Raqqa In Airstrike Activists Blame On Coalition

An airstrike by U.S.-led coalition forces leveled a school west of Raqqa and killed at least 33 people, according to two activist groups monitoring Syria. The groups allege the attack, which they say occurred overnight on Monday and Tuesday, hit a building that had been housing families fleeing violence in war-torn areas nearby.

According to one of those groups, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, the fate of 50 families who had been in the school in the village of Mansoura remains unknown. Both Raqqa and Mansoura are under the control of the Islamic State, which counts Raqqa as the de facto capital of its territorial claims.

"We can now confirm that 33 people were killed, and they were displaced civilians from Raqqa, Aleppo and Homs," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the French news service Agence France-Presse. "They're still pulling bodies out of the rubble until now. Only two people were pulled out alive."

In a statement, the coalition forces cast doubt on these accounts, saying that while they "routinely strike [Islamic State] targets in this area," they "have no indication that an airstrike struck civilians near Raqqah as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims."

That said, the coalition pledged that "since we have conducted several strikes near Raqqa we will provide this information to our civilian casualty team for further investigation."

"Coalition forces work diligently to be precise in our airstrikes," the group added. "Coalition forces comply with the Law of Armed Conflict and take all feasible precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians."

The allegations of civilian deaths follow a similarly bloody incident just days ago, in which locals allege a U.S. airstrike killed at least 30 people at a small mosque compound in rebel-held northern Syria.

"If you look at photographs and videos of the scene, a huge crater is all that's left of the building that was targeted," NPR's Alice Fordham told All Things Considered, describing the strike last Thursday.

Syrian witnesses of that incident say it was the regular meeting of a peaceful religious group, with dozens of civilians, while the Pentagon says "they are confident that the building that they hit was being used by al-Qaida for a meeting," Alice reported last week.

The bloodshed comes as U.S.-backed rebels kicked off a significant offensive to dislodge ISIS militants from Syria's Tabqah Dam, which is very close to the alleged airstrike in Mansoura. That offensive, led by the Syrian Democratic Forces, began overnight with the support of U.S. helicopters, artillery and logistical assistance.</s>DAMASCUS (Sputnik) — Dozens mostly women and children were killed and injured in a presumable US-led coalition airstrike on a Syrian school west of Raqqa, local media reported Wednesday.

"Dozens civilians were killed and injured, most of them women and children, as a result of the attack," the source was quoted as saying by the SANA news service.

Unverified reports estimated up to 33 people may have been killed in the strike.</s>WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Activist groups reported on Tuesday that a coalition strike on a school outside Raqqa killed and injured dozens of internally-displaced people who were sheltering in the building.

Syria’s SANA news service said the building was located south of the town of Mansour, about 19 miles west of Raqqa.

"We have no indication that an airstrike struck civilians near Raqqah as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims, however, since we have conducted several strikes near Raqqa we will provide this information to our civilian casualty team for further investigation," the spokesperson said.

Unverified reports estimated up to 33 people may have been killed in the strike.

The daily coalition strike report issued for Tuesday listed 18 strikes near Raqqa, including three that hit buildings. Two buildings were described as held by Daesh, and a third was said to be Daesh headquarters.</s>The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights all blamed the US-led coalition against ISIS for the airstrike.

In a statement, the coalition said it had "no indication that an airstrike struck civilians near Raqqa." It added, "We will provide this information to our civilian casualty team for further investigation."

The school is in the town of al-Mansoura, west of Raqqa.

The northern city of Raqqa was the first major city captured by ISIS, with its forces in full control by early 2014, and is the extremist group's operational command headquarters.

It is now largely surrounded, its main supply routes cut off by advancing forces. US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces are squeezing ISIS from the north, while Syrian government troops -- backed up by Russia -- have been pushing from the west. The US-led coalition against ISIS has also been carrying out airstrikes against the city. US military helping in fight for Tabqa Dam in Syria</s>BEIRUT (Reuters) - An air strike that hit a school sheltering displaced people near the Islamic-State held Syrian city of Raqqa killed at least 33 people, a group that monitors the war said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed the strike was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition forces fighting Islamic State in the area.

Observatory activists counted at least 33 bodies at the site near the village of al-Mansoura, west of Raqqa, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters. The air strike took place on Monday night, he said.

The Pentagon said there were no indications that a U.S.-led coalition strike near Raqqa had hit civilians, but that it would carry out further investigations.

Abdulrahman said the U.S.-led coalition has escalated its aerial campaign against Islamic State around Raqqa this month, causing numerous civilian casualties.

The nearest Islamic State installation to the site of the air strike was a religious school 3 km (2 miles) away, he said.

The Syrian government urged the United Nations to stop "the devastation and destruction that the 'international coalition' is committing", state-run SANA news agency said on Wednesday.

Syria's foreign ministry accused the U.S.-led coalition of committing a "massacre" by striking a school in the al-Mansoura village, SANA reported.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition has previously said that it does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and that it investigates those that are reported as a result of its air strikes.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led alliance of militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition, is fighting to isolate Raqqa ahead of an anticipated assault on the city, which Islamic State has used as a command node to plan attacks abroad.

The head of the YPG militia, the strongest in the SDF, said last week that the offensive to retake Raqqa would begin in early April but a spokesman for the U.S. Pentagon said no decision had yet been made.</s>The US-led coalition have air-dropped ground forces near the Islamic State-held town of Tabqa in northern Syria, opening a new front in the campaign to capture the jihadist group’s nearby stronghold of Raqqa city.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday the US military had airlifted allied Syrian Arab militia fighters near Tabqa, providing them fire support in a move aimed at retaking a major dam that remains in the hands of Islamic State.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia alliance including Arab and Kurdish fighters, said US forces had deployed with them in the air drop, saying the operation also aimed to block any advance by government forces from the west.

A local official familiar with SDF operations said the airdrop took place on Tuesday.

The SDF, which also includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, is fighting to encircle Raqqa city with support from the US-led coalition, including air support and backing on the ground from US special forces.

The campaign to capture Raqqa from Islamic State appears to be gathering pace as an overlapping, US-backed effort in Iraq is drawing closer to driving the jihadist group from Mosul.

Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. air assets had been used to airlift members of the Syrian Arab Coalition, part of the SDF, in a bid to retake the Tabqa Dam. He did not provide details on the size of the forces moved or what type of fire support was provided.

The SDF, in a statement circulated on an official Telegram account, said: “American forces have conducted a landing operation for US ground forces, along with (SDF) special forces”.

The landing forces had seized four small villages in the area west of Tabqa and cut a main highway that links the provinces of Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Aleppo, it said.

The local official familiar with SDF operations told Reuters the air-drop operation aimed to secure a crossing point for forces coming in boats across the Euphrates, which began arriving at dawn on Wednesday.

The official said the air drop was “a pioneering step”.

Islamic State captured the Tabqa Dam, also known as the Euphrates Dam, and a nearby major air base at the height of its expansion in Syria and Iraq in 2014. It is located about 40 km (25 miles) to the west of Raqqa city.

The head of the YPG told Reuters last week a final assault to capture Raqqa city from IS would begin at the start of April. The Pentagon said a decision had yet to be taken.

Turkey is pressing Washington for a role in the Raqqa campaign. Ankara is concerned about the growing influence of the YPG, seeing it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.

The SDF cut the last main road out of Raqqa earlier this month, narrowing in on the city from the north, east and west.

The only way in or out of Raqqa now is over the Euphrates River that borders the city to the south.

Air strikes by the US-led coalition near Raqqa have escalated this month, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based war monitoring group said an air strike killed at 33 people near Raqqa when it hit a school sheltering displaced people on Monday.

The Observatory said it believed the strike was carried out by the US-led coalition.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that there were no indications that a strike near Raqqa had hit civilians, but that it would carry out further investigations.

Islamic State is losing ground to three separate campaigns in northern Syria – by the SDF, by the Russian-backed Syrian army and by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels</s>At least 33 people were killed in an air strike that hit a school sheltering displaced people near the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa, a group that monitors the war in Syria said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed the strike was carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

Observatory activists had counted at least 33 bodies at the site near the village of al-Mansoura, west of Raqqa, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters. The air strike took place on Monday night, he said.

The U.S.-led coalition has escalated its aerial campaign against the militant group around Raqqa this month, causing numerous civilian casualties, Abdulrahman said.

The nearest Islamic State installation to the site of the air strike was a religious school 3 km (1.9 miles) away, he said.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition has previously said that it does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and that it investigates those that are reported as a result of its air strikes.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led group of militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition, is fighting to isolate Raqqa ahead of an anticipated assault on the city, which Islamic State has used as a command node to plan attacks abroad.

The head of the YPG militia, the strongest in the SDF, said last week that the offensive to retake Raqqa would begin in early April but a spokesman for the U.S. Pentagon said no decision had yet been made.

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A U.S.-led coalition airstrike on a school west of Raqqa, kills at least 33 people.