© AP Photo/ Bram Janssen
Dozens mostly women and children were killed and injured in a presumable US-led coalition airstrike on a Syrian school west of Raqqa, local media reported Wednesday.
"Dozens civilians were killed and injured, most of them women and children, as a result of the attack," the source was quoted as saying by the SANA news service.
Unverified reports estimated up to 33 people may have been killed in the strike.
According to the sources, the school that served as a shelter for 50 families from Aleppo, Raqqa and Homs, was almost completely destroyed.
On Monday, US Department of Defense spokesperson Capt. Jeff Davis said that the US Central Command was assessing the credibility of civilian casualties reports that appeared after a Thursday US counterterrorism strike in al-Jinah in Syria's Aleppo, which hit a mosque.
On Friday, Davis said that the strike targeted an adjacent building. Davis also said that Pentagon was not "aware of any credible allegation of civilian casualties."
The strike killed 42 people, most of them civilians, as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Thursday.On March 4, a monthly report by the Combined Joint Task Force said that "at least 220 civilians have been unintentionally killed by Coalition strikes since the start of
Operation Inherent Resolve" and expressed regret over this loss of lives.
Operation Inherent Resolve is the name of an operation carried out against Daesh terrorist group, banned in many countries, including Russia. The Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve was established in 2014 and aims to coordinate military efforts to combat Daesh.
Comment: Hundreds of people could have
fallen victim to the US-led coalition's airstrike on a school near Raqqa, Turkish Anadolu news agency reported.
The agency added that the area of the school is not controlled by Daesh terrorists, however, terrorists control locations nearby.
The news agency also reported about an airstrike on the Tabqa region in the western part of Raqqa, killing at least 40.
The U.S. Defense Department says the U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremist group Islamic State (IS) will investigate reports that an air strike hit a school being used as a shelter in Syria, killing at least 33 people near the IS stronghold of Raqqa.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed the air strike was carried out by aircraft of the U.S.-led coalition that is fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.
"At this time the coalition has no indication that an airstrike struck civilians near Raqqa as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims," a statement from the U.S. Central Command said.
"However, since we have conducted several strikes near Raqqa, we will provide this information to our civilian casualty team for further investigation."
The Pentagon will aid in investigating reports that at least 33 civilian died near the Syrian town of Raqqa during a US-led coalition airstrike, officials said on Wednesday, following accusations from both local media and monitoring groups based abroad.
"CJTF-OIR [Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve] takes all reports of civilian casualties seriously and assesses all incidents as thoroughly as possible. Coalition forces work diligently to be precise in our airstrikes. Coalition forces comply with the Law of Armed Conflict and take all feasible precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians."
See also:
US-backed Syrian militia airlifted to Raqqa by US air assets to overtake Taqba Dam
Comment: Hundreds of people could have fallen victim to the US-led coalition's airstrike on a school near Raqqa, Turkish Anadolu news agency reported. See also: US-backed Syrian militia airlifted to Raqqa by US air assets to overtake Taqba Dam