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Over 1,000 Islamist militants killed in U.S strikes in Syria: monitor
23/12/2014
AMMAN (Reuters) - Three months of U.S.-led strikes in Syria have so far killed at least 1,171 people, mostly Islamic State militants, a British-based Syrian monitoring group said on Tuesday.
Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters only 52 were civilians. But his network of activists, who are based around Syria, said the death toll since the military campaign was launched in late September was probably higher among hardline Islamist insurgents.
"This is because of the difficulty of activists reaching areas hit by the coalition and also because the Islamic State keeps a tight lid on it's human losses," Abdulrahman said.
The United States and its allies have significantly scaled down their air strikes in Syria since late September compared to the first month of the campaign.
In total, the United States carried out 488 air strikes in Syria through Dec. 15, according to U.S. military data published by Reuters. The Observatory figures do not include casualties from air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Alison Williams)
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