BEIRUT: US warplanes attacked Islamic State targets in Syria overnight, in raids that a group monitoring the war said killed civilians as well as jihadist fighters.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij, in an area controlled by Islamic State, killing at least two civilian workers.

Strikes on a building on a road leading out of the town also killed a number of Islamic State fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory which gathers information from sources in Syria.

At the Mursitpinar border crossing with Turkey, scores of young men were returning to Syria saying they would join the fight.

More refugees were fleeing in the opposite direction.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2014