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Beirut. — US-led air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria have killed more than 1 600 people, mainly jihadists, since they began five months ago, a monitor said yesterday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said almost all of those killed were jihadists from ISIS and al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front, though it also documented the deaths of 62 civilians.

The Britain-based monitor said the strikes that began on September 23 had killed 1 465 members of the Islamic State group, most of them non-Syrians.

Another 73 fighters from al-Nusra Front were killed, along with a man from a rebel group being held prisoner by ISIS in the group’s de facto capital Raqa. Washington and a small coalition of Arab countries began strikes against ISIS in Syria last year, expanding US-led operations with a broader coalition already underway against ISIS in Iraq. — AFP.