BEIRUT -- U.S-led coalition airstrikes on the last pocket held by Islamic State militants in Syria near the Iraqi border killed at least 40 people, mostly women and children, a war monitor and Syrian state media outlets reported.
The coalition confirmed strikes in the area but said no "civilian casualties are associated" with them, reiterating that it takes measures to avoid noncombatant casualties.
"We have witnessed [Islamic State militants] using places of worship and hospitals as command centers against the laws of war, and innocent civilians as human shields," Col. Sean Ryan, a spokesman for the coalition, said in an email to The Associated Press.
The remote area near the border with Iraq is difficult to access and it was not possible to independently verify the reports.
However, Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the early Saturday airstrikes hit homes in Abu al-Hassan village, near the town of Hajin, which lies along the border with Iraq.
Abdurrahman said the airstrikes killed at least 43 people, including 17 children and 12 women. He said it was not immediately clear if the men killed in the strikes were militants.
The Syrian Arab News Agency also reported the strikes, saying 40 people were killed in the remote area of Buqaan, another village next to Abu al-Hassan, in Deir el-Zour province.
The Islamic State-linked Aamaq news agency also reported 40 killed, quoting a medical official in the Hajin area.
Activist Omar Abou Leila, who monitors the war in Deir el-Zour from Europe, also confirmed the strikes but said it was difficult to verify the death toll. Abou Leila said Islamic State militants are preventing civilians from leaving the area, resulting in the high casualty toll among them.
The U.S.-led coalition and its partners, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, opened the campaign against the last Islamic State-held pocket in early September.
The Observatory has recorded at least 191 civilians killed since Sept. 10, including 65 children and 45 women. They are mostly Iraqis and believed to include family members of Islamic State militants, the Observatory added.
Speaking to The Associated Press in Iraq on Saturday, the coalition's deputy commander, Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, described the fight against Islamic State militants as "difficult."
"We never thought or said this fight would be easy. These are some of the most determined fighters and they've had a lot of time to prepare their defensive positions, so this isn't an easy fight, and our Syrian democratic force partners with coalition support are taking the fight every day to the enemy," Ghika said.
Information for this article was contributed by Philip Issa, Maamoun Youssef and Albert AI of The Associated Press.
A Section on 11/18/2018