At least 18 civilians killed Thursday in U.S.-led coalition airstrikes on Raqqa in support of Kurdish-led fighters who seek to expel ISIS from the de facto capital in eastern Syria, local monitoring group said.
Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said the Coalition strikes hit the district of al Nour mosque, leaving 18 people killed, topping the death toll of U.S. airstrikes to a total of 400 people in last few weeks.
Activists said the aerial bombing is indiscriminately where most of victims were family member or farmers.
The SDF, on Wednesday, took territory on the south bank of the Euphrates River with the aim of encircling the city, a militia spokesman told Reuters.
The SDF, which include Arab and Kurdish fighters and are supported with air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition, began an offensive two weeks ago to seize the northern city from Islamic State, which overran it in 2014.
Nouri Mahmoud, spokesman for the Kurdish YPG militia which is part of the SDF, told Reuters Islamic State had been ousted from the suburb of Kasrat al-Farj as the SDF moved in along the southern riverbank from the west.
When the campaign began the SDF had Raqqa, which sits on the Euphrates' northern bank, surrounded from the north, west and east. Although Islamic State controlled the south bank of the river, coalition air strikes had destroyed the bridges connecting it to the city.
The SDF is now trying to enact a siege of the city by taking the southern bank. The forces are a couple of kilometers from achieving this aim
