42 prisoners said killed in US-led raids on IS prison in Syria

Terror group reportedly parades bodies of dead through town after bombardment; 15 jihadists also said killed

By Agencies 27 June 2017, 3:46 pm

Edit

Smoke billows following a reported airstrike in the rebel-held parts of the Jobar district, on the eastern outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus, on June 21, 2017. (AFP Photo/Amer Almohibany)

US-led coalition air strikes on a jail run by the Islamic State terror group in eastern Syria killed at least 57 people, including 42 prisoners, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.

“The strikes hit an IS jail in Mayadeen at dawn on Monday, killing 42 prisoners and 15 jihadists,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Mayadeen lies in the Euphrates Valley some 45 kilometers (28 miles) southeast of the provincial capital of Deir Ezzor.

The activist-run Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet said the building targeted in Tuesday’s strike belonged to an al-Qaeda-linked commander before it was seized by IS in 2014.

The two groups said the US-led coalition was behind the strike. It was not clear how they identified the aircraft responsible. The coalition could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Britain-based Observatory said that according to its sources IS had paraded the bodies of the dead in the streets of the town.

Most of Deir Ezzor province is controlled by the jihadists and it has been the target of air strikes by both the coalition and the Syrian army and its Russian ally.

The US-led coalition said last week that it had killed IS’s top cleric Turki Binali in a May 31 strike on Mayadeen.

Russia said earlier this month that it had killed about 180 IS jihadists, including two field commanders, in June 6 and 8 air strikes on Deir Ezzor.