Image copyright Reuters Image caption US-led air strikes helped Kurdish and Arab fighters capture the IS stronghold of Raqqa last year

The US-led coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) says it has killed up to 150 militants in air strikes on a headquarters in Syria. The latest strikes come as the United States urged Turkey to show restraint in its campaign against Kurdish forces in northern Syria and to focus on fighting Islamic State militants. The United States has signalled an open-ended military presence in Syria as part of a broader strategy to prevent Islamic State’s resurgence, pave the way diplomatically for the eventual departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and curtail Iran’s influence. According to a statement from the coalition, the air strikes took place Saturday near Al-Shafah, in Deir Ezzor province, on an IS headquarters where the jihadists appeared to have been “massing for movement.”

“The precision strikes were a culmination of extensive intelligence preparation to confirm an ISIS headquarters and command and control center in an exclusively ISIS-occupied location in the contested Middle Euphrates River Valley,” the statement read. Militants were "massing for movement" at the headquarters before it was hit, according to the coalition, which said between 145 and 150 were killed. IS now controls only small pockets of land in Syria, including a part of the Euphrates valley, where it is under attack by a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as well as Syrian pro-government forces supported by Russia and Iran. “Our SDF partners are still making daily progress and sacrifices, and together we are still finding, targeting and killing ISIS terrorists intent on keeping their extremist hold on the region,” Major General James Jarrard, commander of special operations for the coalition, said in the statement. The United States has led an international coalition conducting air strikes against Islamic State since 2014. U.S. troops have served as advisers on the ground with Iraqi government forces and with Kurdish and Arab groups in Syria. The coalition has said in the past that fewer than 1,000 Islamic State fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, but that the militant group still remains a threat. The figure excludes areas in western Syria under the control of Assad’s government and his allies.
The U.S.-led coalition against ISIL says it has killed up to 150 militants in air strikes on a headquarters in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria.