BEIRUT — At least 20 civilians, including some children, were killed in suspected U.S.-coalition airstrikes on a village east of the Islamic State group’s de-facto capital in Syria, activists reported Thursday, as the militants come under mounting pressure by rival U.S.-backed and Russian-backed forces in northern Syria. The fighter jets that carried out the strikes were believed to belong to the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) armed group, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday. US officials are claiming a number of ISIS leadership figures have been trying to flee southeast from Raqqa into Deir Ezzor Province, and that the US and their allies are trying to cut off the road between the two.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, multiple suspected U.S.-led coalition air raids kill at least 23 civilians in the village of al-Matab in northern Syria.