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US-Led Airstrikes in Syria Kill Over 900: Monitoring Group


Smoke rises over the Syrian city of Kobani, following a US led coalition airstrike, seen from outside Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border Monday, Nov. 10, 2014. Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab, and its surrounding areas, has been under assault by extremists
Smoke rises over the Syrian city of Kobani, following a US led coalition airstrike, seen from outside Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border Monday, Nov. 10, 2014. Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab, and its surrounding areas, has been under assault by extremists

A prominent activist group monitoring Syria's civil war says U.S.-led airstrikes in the country have killed more than 900 people since the campaign against Islamic State militants began in September.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the toll includes more than 50 civilians, five of them women and eight of them children.

But the group says a majority of those killed, a total of 785, were Islamic State fighters.

It says another 72 militants killed in the airstrikes were members of Syria's al-Qaida affiliate, the Nusra Front.

The observatory, which compiles its data from a network of contacts on the ground, has been a major source of information in the Syrian conflict, now in its fourth year.

The group says it believes the number of Islamic State deaths is actually higher than its figure, noting the difficulty of accessing areas that have been hit and the fact that there has been "absolute secrecy on casualties."

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