US-led strikes kill dozens in Daesh-held Syrian town

In this file photo provided by the US Air Force, an F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, to launch airstrikes against Daesh targets in Syria. (Photo by AP)

A so-called monitoring group says dozens of people have lost their lives when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group carried out a string of aerial attacks on a militant-held town in Syria's troubled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes targeted a jail run by Daesh extremists in Mayadeen town, located some 45 kilometers (28 miles) southeast of the provincial capital of Dayr al-Zawr, at dawn on Monday.

The monitoring group said the aerial assaults left 42 prisoners and 15 Daesh terrorists dead.

Privately-owned and pro-government al-Ikhbariya al-Soriyah television news network reported that US-led coalition warplanes had destroyed a building in al-Mayadeen used as a prison by Daesh.

The report added that the building had been used as a detention center for a “large number of civilians.”

“With every single allegation we will take it and look into it. If we are responsible for any civilian casualties we come forth and admit it,” Colonel Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the US-led coalition, commented.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate. 

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of destroying Daesh.

Syria has been fighting different foreign-sponsored militant and terrorist groups since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated last August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the crisis until then.