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Washington (AFP) – 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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