At least eight people were killed in an airstrike by an international coalition led by the US on a gas distribution facility in the stronghold of the Islamic State extremist group in Syria, local activists announced today.
The target of last night's attack was a distribution gas station in the city of Hasham, in the oil-rich province of Deir el Zor, and the airstrikes caused a series of secondary explosions.
The US-led military coalition is aggressively attacking oil facilities held by the Islamic State in Syria, as they are a key source of income for the extremist group.
The AP agency states that, however, civilians are often killed in such attacks, which could undermine long-term efforts to destroy the Islamic State.
The US military has not yet commented on last night's attacks.
The US-led coalition began bombing Islamic State positions in Syria at the end of September, after bombing their positions in neighboring Iraq, where the extremist group also holds large parts of the territory under its control.
Most of the coalition attacks in recent days have focused on the area around the Syrian border town of Kobani, which extremists from the Islamic State have been trying to capture since mid-September.
According to activists, more than 200.000 people have been killed so far in the Syrian civil war, which has lasted for more than three years.
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