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US-led anti-IS coalition admits 9 more civilian deaths Washington, June 1 (AFP) Jun 01, 2018 The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq acknowledged Friday the deaths of another nine civilians, increasing the toll of non-fighters killed to at least 892. The coalition completed a review in April of 159 potential civilian casualty reports and found five were considered credible, resulting in the nine civilian fatalities, a statement said. They concerned strikes in Iraq and Syria between January 2017 and January 2018. On January 9, 2017, near the Iraqi city of Mosul, two civilians were killed when a vehicle loaded with explosives that was heading towards coalition positions was struck, the statement said. On November 1, 2017, three civilians were killed and two others wounded in a strike on a road used by IS fighters in the Deir Ezzor region of Syria's Euphrates Valley. Three other coalition strikes -- on November 16, December 28 and January 8 -- against IS fighters who had retreated after the fall of their self-proclaimed capital Raqa resulted in a total of four deaths and four wounded. Of the other potential civilian casualty reports reviewed, the coalition said 149 were deemed non-credible and five were redundant. From August 2014 to April 2018 the coalition conducted a total of 29,358 strikes and "assesses at least 892 civilians have been unintentionally killed," it said. Monitoring group Airwars says the number of civilian deaths acknowledged by the US-led coalition is well below the true toll of the bombing campaign, estimating that at least 6,259 civilians have lost their lives. The US-led operations to fight IS in Iraq and Syria have largely wound down, with the jihadists ousted from almost all of the territory they once held.
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