US-led strikes kill over 900 in Syria: activists

A boy looks through a hole in a tent at the Bab Al-Salam refugee camp in Azaz, near the Syrian-Turkish border November 19, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

DAMASCUS -- The US-led anti-terror coalition has killed more than 900 people in its strikes inside Syria during the past 60 days, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

The death toll includes 52 civilians, eight of whom were children and five women, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the casualties were a result of the US-led strikes in areas rich of oil fields and wells in Syrian provinces of Hasaka, Deir al-Zour, al-Raqqa, Aleppo and Idlib.

The toll also includes 72 fighters of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and 758 fighters of the Islamic State militants, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on ground.

The US-led anti-terror coalition started its strikes against areas under the extremist group's control late last September.

Separately, the clashes between the extremist groups and Syrian government forces have continued since Friday evening in the orchards of the town of Zabdin in the eastern countryside of the capital Damascus, amid reports of losses among the ranks of government troops, according to the Observatory.

Meanwhile, eight people, including two rebel fighters, were killed on Friday during clashes between the rebels and the Syrian troops in Damascus' sprawling suburb of Eastern Ghouta, the Observatory reported on Saturday.

The Syrian crisis has been dragging on unabatedly since 2011. The United Nations said over 190,000 people have been killed during the long-running conflict.