Over 1,000 jihadists slain by US-led strikes in Syria

Monitoring groups says vast majority killed in past 3 months are Islamic State members; 52 civilians also die

By AFP 23 December 2014, 2:08 pm Edit

Islamic State fighters stand in front of an explosion from an air strike on Tilsehir hill in Syria, near the Turkish border, on October 23, 2014, at Yumurtalik village, in Sanliurfa province. (AFP/Bulent Kilic)

BEIRUT, Lebanon — US-led airstrikes in Syria have killed more than 1,000 jihadists in the past three months, nearly all of them from the Islamic State group, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

“At least 1,171 have been killed in the Arab and international airstrikes (since September 23), including 1,119 jihadists of the Islamic State group and Al-Nusra Front,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists and medics across the war-ravaged country for its information.

Among those killed were 1,046 members of the IS group, which has seized large chunks of Iraq and Syria and is the main target of the US-led airstrikes.

Seventy-two of those killed were members of Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the Al-Nusra Front, while another was a jihadist prisoner whose affiliation was unknown, the Observatory said in a statement.

The remaining 52 were civilians.

IS has declared a “caliphate” in the parts of Iraq and Syria that it has overrun, and its militants have been accused of widespread atrocities, including beheading Western hostages.