U.S.-led strikes have killed 2,079 people in Syria: monitor

BEIRUT - Reuters

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Air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition in Syria have killed 2,079 people, including 66 civilians, since the start of the aerial campaign against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants last September, a group monitoring the war said on April 23.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a majority of the deaths, some 1,922, were ISIL fighters.The hardline group has seized tracts of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led forces since last July.Ten of the civilians killed were children and six were women, the Observatory said. It said 90 members of the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front were also killed in the air strikes, which started on September 23.The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously and says it has a process to investigate each allegation.Washington justified its action in Syria under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which covers an individual or collective right to self-defence against armed attack.Around 220,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, which is now in its fourth year, the United Nations has said.