Airstrikes in Syria kill 'dozens of ISIL fighters'

At least 40 fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been killed in an airstrike on their convoy in the Syrian province of Hama, a U.K.-based monitoring group says.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that unidentified warplanes hit the 16-vehicle motorcade overnight between Saturday and Sunday in Hama province.

The Observatory, which monitors the war in Syria and has a network of sources on the ground, was unable to ascertain if the airstrikes were carried out by Russian warplanes or those of the Syrian government.

"But they don't belong to the coalition led by Washington," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France-Presse news agency.

Rahman said that the convoy was hit as it was heading from the self-declared ISIL capital of Raqqa in northern Syria to the Hama countryside.

Last year, a U.S.-led coalition launched an air campaign against the group that controls swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

Russia, a key ally of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, has been carrying out a campaign of airstrikes against his opponents since Sept. 30.

Russian planes carried out 33 sorties and hit 49 ISIL targets over the past 24 hours, news agency Interfax reported Monday, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.

The ministry said that targets were located in the provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Idlib, Latakia and Hama. It added that a command point of the Nusra Front, Syria’s Al-Qaeda wing, was destroyed in the Idlib province.

The war continues to take a hard toll on civilians, trapped between battle lines. Russian and Syrian warplanes pounded targets in central and northern Syria, killing several civilians Sunday as ground troops battled insurgents and seized new territory, activists and the government said.

The Observatory and activist news platform Syrian Revolution Talbiseh said warplanes believed to be Russian targeted mourners at a funeral in Homs province's al-Ghanto village, killing four civilians.

Homs-based activist Bebars al-Telawy said the civilians were burying a man who died from wounds sustained a day earlier when the planes struck.

The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates there are 4 million Syrians are living in besieged areas or hard-to-reach locations, and are in need of aid.

Wire services