US-led Syria strike kills 80 relatives of ISIS terrorists, including 33 children

Beirut: A US-led coalition air strike on the eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen early Friday killed at least 80 relatives of Islamic State group fighters, a monitoring group told .

"The toll includes 33 children. They were families seeking refuge in the town's municipal building," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "This is the highest toll for relatives of IS members in Syria," Abdel Rahman told.

The latest strike came as the United Nations urged all nations bombing jihadist targets in Syria to better distinguish between civilian and military targets.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said "all states" whose air



forces are active in the anti-IS missions needed "to take much greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians."

The Britain-based Observatory gathered information from civilian and medical sources on the ground in IS-held Mayadeen, which was facing its third day of fierce bombing.

According to the Observatory, 37 civilians were killed in coalition raids on the town on Thursday night, including 13 children, and another 15 had been killed in coalition strikes on Wednesday.

The 68-member coalition began bombing IS targets in Iraq in the summer of 2014, and expanded their operations to Syria on September 23 of that year.