US-led air campaign has killed at least 2,000 people in Syria since September, a monitoring group said Thursday. Most of the 2,000 killed have been Islamic State militants.
"At least 1,922 fighters from IS, mostly foreigners, have been killed since September 23, 2014 in raids and aerial attacks by the international coalition on IS positions and oil refineries," across Syria reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, AFP reported.
The monitoring group also reported that 66 civilians, including 10 children, have been killed in the airstrikes. Ninety fighters from Al-Qaeda Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front have also been killed in the coalition attacks, the Britain-based monitoring group said..
The airstrikes on oil refineries might hamper IS financial abilities, while also targeting militants.
The airstrikes have focused on the country's central province of Homs, Aleppo in the North, Hasakeh in the Northeast and Deir Ezzor to the east, as well as the province of Raqa, known as the center of the IS.
A recent US-led airstrike was rumored to have injured Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the group. Several reports cited a western diplomat and Iraqi advisor that al-Baghdadi had been seriously injured in a March 18 airstrike that hit a convoy of vehicles between the Iraqi villages of Umm al-Rous and al-Qaraan close to the Syrian border. US officials were quick to shoot down the reports.
“We have no reason to believe it was Baghdadi,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said last week. The Guardian reported, however, that the injuries to Baghdadi were serious enough that IS was preparing to name a new leader.
