A total of 31 radical fighters were killed as the Syrian air force on Sunday struck positions of the Islamic State (IS) militants in the country’s Raqqa province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog group, said.
The 31 rebels were killed as a result of a series of air strikes the Syrian air forces carried out against the IS positions in Raqqa, which has fallen to the IS militants except for the al-Tabaqa military airbase, Xinhua reported.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on ground, said eight civilians, including a child, were also killed as a result of the air strikes.
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The stepped-up attack by the Syrian army came a day after the IS fighters were said to have killed as high as 700 tribesmen in Syria’s Deir al-Zour province over the past two weeks.