Air strike kills 10 civilians in Syria

BEIRUT, June 12 (AFP): An air raid on a village in northeast Syria held by the IS jihadist group killed at least 10 civilians including three children on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes on Tal al-Shair in the northeastern province of Hasakeh were carried out by the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and neighbouring Iraq since 2014.

There was no immediate confirmation from the coalition of the strike, the latest in a series of raids to have reportedly caused civilian casualties in the area in past weeks.

Tal al-Shair lies in a small pocket still held by IS fighters near the Iraqi border in the south of Hasakeh, where a Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by the coalition has been battling the jihadists in recent days.

According to the Observatory, a coalition air strike last week killed 11 civilians in the same IS-held area, and another 12 lost their lives in coalition raids on June 01.

The coalition told AFP it was carrying out an investigation into the June 1 allegation.

Earlier this month, it admitted to nine more civilians deaths, bringing to 892 the total number of civilians it acknowledges to have killed since it intervened in Iraq and Syria.