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U.S.-led coalition airstrikes pound Raqqa, Syria

A U.S.-led coalition carried out at least 30 air strikes in Syria against Islamic State militants in the northern province of Raqqa on Saturday, a monitoring group said.

Attacks hit northern outskirts of ISIS stronghold

U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeted ISIS positions in the city of Raqqa. (Staff Sgt. Shawn Nickel/ Associated Press)

A U.S.-led coalition carried out at least 30 air strikes in Syria against ISIS in the northern province ofRaqqaon Saturday, a monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air strikes hit ISISpositions in the northern outskirts ofRaqqacity, a major stronghold of thehardlineIslamist militants.

The areas hit by the strikes included the17thDivision, a Syrian army base that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria group seized in July, the Observatory said.

The U.S.-led coalition began bombing ISISin Syria in September. Syria's nearly four-year-old civil war has continued unabated throughout the country.

The Observatory said 19 people were killed including seven women and two children when Syrian government warplanes struck the town of Jassim in the southern province of Deraa on Sunday.

Dozens of others were wounded and the death toll was expected to rise because a number were in critical condition, the Observatory said.

Fighting also continued in the Kurdish town of Kobani, northwest of Raqqa on the border with Turkey, where Kurdish defenders have been holding off an assault by ISISfor more than two months.

At least 62 people have been killed in fighting in Kobani, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, since early on Saturday, the Observatory said.