US, Arabs allies launch first strikes on IS fighters in Syria, 120 killed

The United States and its Arab allies bombed Syria for the first time Tuesday, killing scores of Islamic State fighters and members of a separate al Qaeda-linked group, opening a new front against militants by joining a three-year-old civil war.
US Central Command said Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates participated in or supported the strikes against Islamic State targets around the eastern cities of Raqqa, Deir al-Zor, Hasakah and Albu Kamal, according to a news agency.
Warplanes and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles struck "fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles," it said.
Washington also said US forces had acted alone to launch eight strikes in another area of Syria against the "Khorasan Group", an al Qaeda unit US officials have described in recent days as posing a threat similar to that from Islamic State.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said at least 70 Islamic State fighters were killed in strikes that hit at least 50 targets in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor and Hasakah provinces in Syria's east.
It said at least 50 fighters and eight civilians were killed in strikes targeting al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, in northern Aleppo and Idlib provinces, apparently referring to the strikes the Americans said targeted Khorasan. The Observatory said most of the Nusra Front fighters killed were not Syrians.

The air attacks fulfill President Barack Obama's pledge to strike in Syria against Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq, imposing a mediaeval interpretation of Islam, slaughtering prisoners and ordering Shias and non-Muslims to convert or die.