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Civilians among 54 dead in anti-IS strike: monitor

AFP, Beirut
**SYRIA OFFENSIVE
US-led coalition says it may have carried out raids near Iraqi border**
An air strike on one of the last holdouts of the Islamic State group in Syria has killed 54 people, more than half of them civilians, a war monitor said yesterday.
The US-led coalition fighting the jihadists said it or its allies may have carried out air raids in the area, and it was investigating the alleged civilian deaths.
The raid late Thursday on an ice factory near the village of Al-Soussa close to the Iraqi border killed 28 civilians and 26 IS jihadists, the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It was not immediately clear if the raid on the eastern Deir Ezzor province was carried out by an Iraqi plane or the coalition, the monitor said.
In a written statement, the US-led alliance said: "The coalition or our partner forces may have conducted strikes in the vicinity of Al-Soussa and Baghour Fukhani" on Thursday.
"We are forwarding the report to our
Civilian Casualty Cell for further assessment on this allegation," it said.
Iraqi warplanes have recently carried out strikes against IS in eastern Syria, while coalition aircraft have been supporting Kurdish-led fighters battling the jihadists.
The IS fighters were Syrians and Iraqis, the Observatory said.
State news agency SANA reported the strike late Thursday, saying more than 30 civilians were killed and accusing the coalition of carrying it out.
IS fighters swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014, declaring a cross-border "caliphate" in areas they controlled.
They have since lost most of that territory to various offensives, but still retain pockets of land in Syria including in the country's vast Badiya desert and in Deir Ezzor.
IS fighters have faced two separate offensives in Deir Ezzor on either side of the Euphrates River that cuts through the province.