At least five dead in bombings by the United States and its allies against the Islamic State in Syria, according to the Observatory

MADRID, December 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –

At least five people died in bombings launched Friday morning by the U.S.-led international coalition against suspected Islamic State targets in southern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

“There are five dead in Deir Ezzor, more precisely in Darba. We have intelligence information from the Syrian Democratic Forces” – FDS, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias which control north-west Syria – explained the director of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, in statements on the Arabic channel France 24.

These attacks were launched by the International Coalition against the Islamic State in retaliation for the deaths of three Americans during an action by a suspected member of the group near Palmyra on December 13.

In addition, during the attacks, other “Islamic State bases” were attacked, which “the Russians knew, the regime of Bashar al Assad, the Iranians knew” in the Amer Mountains, on Mount Bishri, in the Raqqa Valley and in other regions where “there are military bases”.

The targets were provided by the FDS intelligence services, which “provide the information and then it is destroyed by American planes.”

The head of the Observatory stressed that some of the targets attacked were “just a few kilometers from the positions of the Syrian army.” “IS knows the valley better than the Syrian forces. Many of those who came to support the Syrian forces actually came from IS cells, particularly in the Al Sur Valley.”

Abdel Rahman also stressed that ISIS “knew there would be a response”, thus calling into question the effectiveness of these attacks a week after the deaths of the three Americans.

The United States bombed Islamic State positions in response to last weekend’s attack in Syria’s Palmyra province, which left three Americans dead, including two Iowa National Guard soldiers and a civilian interpreter.

The US military’s Central Command, CENTCOM, reported that the operation included more than 100 precision munitions teams “targeting known infrastructure and weapons depots” of the Islamic State, through the use of fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery.