US-led airstrikes kill 7 children in Syria's Raqqa
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E-mail Xinhua, August 4, 2017
At least seven children were killed by fresh U.S.-led airstrikes on Syria's northern city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State (IS), state news agency SANA reported on Friday.
The airstrikes targeted several residential areas in Raqqa overnight, leaving many people wounded and destorying their houses, SANA said. The U.S.-led coalition has carried out 44 air raids over the past 48 hours, targeting residential areas.
The state news agency repeated the government stance that the Washington-led coalition has been formed "illegitimately, as it was formed...under the pretext of fighting terrorism, while the facts suggest that the coalition is attacking infrastructure and committing massacres."
Earlier this week, the Syrian Foreign Ministry urged the UN to dissolve the coalition, citing the falling of victims on daily basis.
The U.S.-led coalition started its operation in Syria in 2014 against the IS positions in north of the country.
Recently, the coalition upped its strikes on Raqqa as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are on a crushing offensive to drive IS out of its main stronghold in Syria.
The SDF has been making strides in the battles against IS in Raqqa, whose countryside is also subject to a military offensive by the Syrian government forces.
A day earlier, IS's Amaq news agency said that one of the IS suicide bombers targeted a group of Kurdish fighters in the Souk Al-Hal area, southeast of Raqqa, killing 40 fighters with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Raqqa is a major stronghold of IS, but the battle to eradicate the terror-designated group, which has started by the U.S.-backed SDF, will not be easy with recent reports suggesting the IS militants are in possession of chemical weapons inside that city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the IS militants will likely use such weapons should the SDF advance more into Raqqa.
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