Coalition air strikes kill 28 in eastern Syria

BEIRUT: Air strikes by the US-led coalition have killed 28 people in an eastern Syria holdout of the Islamic State group on the Iraqi border, a war monitor said on Tuesday.

Those killed in the village of Al-Shaafa on Sunday included 22 civilian members of IS families, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. "On Tuesday, 22 bodies of civilians were retrieved including nine children, as well as the remains of six other people not yet identified," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. "The strikes targeted IS homes in Al-Shaafa," he said, inside a last pocket under militant control in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The bodies could not be retrieved earlier because air raids were ongoing, he said.