U.S.-led coalition killed 9 people, mostly children, in airstrikes hit Raqqa neighborhoods in support for Kurdish-led forces that grip on the de facto capital of ISIS, local monitoring group said Friday.
Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently said the the U.S. airstrikes on Thursday hit Hisham Bin Abdul Maleq neighborhood, killing 9 civilians, including children.
Meanwhile, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seized the eastern Batani district from the extremist group on Thursday.
"Late Thursday, they began an offensive on neighboring Al-Rumeilah," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Clashes were raging on Friday as Daesh deployed its typical defensive tactics: weaponized drones, snipers, and improvised explosive devices, Abdel Rahman told AFP.
An SDF fighter near Al-Rumeilah told AFP on Thursday that suicide attackers were using explosives-laden vehicles to hold back the SDF.
"They're sending booby-trapped cars towards our positions, and as they fall back, they're laying mines," said the 30-year-old fighter, who identified himself as Abu.
Civilians "can't move. They can't leave during the day because of snipers."
Abu said his unit had managed to open up an escape route for residents of Al-Rumeilah, like 56-year-old Abdel Halim Ulaywi.
"Ten days ago, a strike hit our home and we ran inside quickly. My sister was hit in the stomach and started bleeding. She stayed alive for six days and then she died," Ulaywi said.
He had tried to escape several times "but Daesh kept forcing us back," he told AFP.
According to Abdel Rahman, Daesh has slowed down the SDF's push in other parts of Raqqa, including the Old City.
"The SDF is struggling to hold newly seized positions in the Old City because of intense sniping and escalating attacks by drones carrying bombs," he said.
Daesh captured Raqqa in early 2014, transforming the northern Syrian city into the scene of gruesome atrocities like public beheadings.
The SDF, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, spent months encircling the city before finally breaking into it on June 6.
The militia has since captured around 30 percent of the city, according to the British-based Observatory.
In next-door Hasaka province, U.S.-led airstrikes killed a mother and her two children on Thursday while three more people lost their lives in a road mine explosion in the northern countryside, activists said Thursday.
The U.S.-led airstrikes struck the village of al-Sada al-Gharbiya, killing a family of three, mother and two children. Three students were also killed in Friday in mine explosion.
At least 10 people from the same family were also killed on Tuesday when U.S.-led warplanes pounded al-Zyanat village near Markada town, ISIS last stronghold in Hasaka.
The death toll from the Coalition strikes reach a total of 500 people in the last three months, according to local monitoring groups. Most victims were family members.
Last week, U.S. strikes killed 12 family members in Tel al-Shayer area in the southern countryside.
The US-led air campaign against the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria began on September 23, 2014.
Syria's conflict evolved from a bloody crackdown on protests in 2011 into to a devastating war that has drawn in world powers, including Russia and a US-led international coalition
