ALEPPO/WASHINGTON (AA): At least 160 civilians were killed Tuesday in airstrikes carried out by U.S.-led coalition warplanes in northern Syria’s Daesh-held town of Manbij, according to local sources.

The airstrikes targeted a group of civilians trying to flee clashes in Manbij’s village of Tukhar, one local source told Anadolu Agency, requesting anonymity due to safety concerns.

“Entire families were killed in the attack,” the source said, adding that the airstrikes had also left at least 100 people injured.

In June, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters, backed by coalition airpower, launched an offensive to retake Manbij from the Daesh terrorist group.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests — which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings — with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to UN figures.

However, the Syrian Center for Policy Research, an NGO, has put the death toll from the five-year conflict at more than 470,000.

The Pentagon told Anadolu Agency the U.S. military is aware of the reports of civilian casualties from the region and it is looking into the allegations.

“We will review any information we have about the incident, including information provided by third parties,” a Pentagon official wrote in an email. “If the information supporting the allegation is determined to be credible, we will then determine the next appropriate step.”
Author Kasım İleri,Sibel Uğurlu,Mahmoud Barakat

[Photo: Syrian civil defense members are seen at site after Assad regime’s war crafts carried out an airstrikes at Mashad district of Aleppo, Syria on July 19, 2016. Photographer: Mustafa Sultan/AA]

No photographs available of US attacks in N Syria where civilians were killed