Air raids on IS Syria bastion kill 13 civilians: monitor

A man walks amidst smoke and fire following a reportedly air strike by Syrian government forces in the Islamic State (IS) group controlled Syrian city of Raqa, on November 25, 2014. A string of Syrian regime air strikes on the Islamic State group’s self-proclaimed capital Raqa killed at least 63 people, more than half of them civilians, a monitor said. The air strikes were the deadliest by President Bashar al-Assad’s air force against Raqa since the Sunni extremist IS seized control of the city last year. AFP PHOTO

BEIRUT , Lebanon (AFP) — Heavy air strikes throughout the night on the Islamic State group’s de facto Syria capital Raqa killed at least 13 civilians and five jihadists, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had no immediate word on whether the strikes were carried out by the Damascus regime, its ally Moscow or the US-led coalition battling IS.

“Raqa has not been targeted by air raids of this intensity for several weeks,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

“These raids continued throughout the night and into the morning.”