airstrikes

President Bashar Assad's forces have been pounding Douma from the skies for over a week. The sprawling suburb is home to the Jaysh al-Islam rebel group, also known as Islam Army.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 20 people were killed in the latest airstrikes Saturday. Other groups including the Local Coordination Committees and the Douma Revolution Facebook page put the death toll at 50. Such discrepancies are normal in the aftermath of chaotic strikes in Syria.

Abdullah al-Thinni, who heads an internationally-recognized government at war with both Islamic extremists and rival Islamist-backed authorities that control the capital, said his forces need weapons and other support to take on the IS group, and have been let down by the international community.

"We're fully relying on Arab nations and not on the international community, as we were let down after repeated unanswered appeals," al-Thinni told The Associated Press in an interview late Wednesday.

The statement late Saturday came after the IS affiliate seized control of a new neighbourhood in Sirte. The militants shelled the area, killed a senior cleric and hung the bodies of prisoners over bridges.

A U.S.-led coalition has conducted nearly 6,000 airstrikes against the Islamic State group, expanding its operations to target the extremists in Syria as well. But a year later, the Islamic State group remains able to launch attacks across its self-declared "caliphate" in both countries, despite some gains by Kurdish fighters and allied Iraqi forces.

Meanwhile, searches continued in Egypt for a missing Croatian hostage that an Islamic State affiliate had threatened to kill.

The coalition had no immediate comment.

The report by Airwars, a project aimed at tracking the international airstrikes targeting the extremists, said it believed 57 specific strikes killed civilians and caused 48 suspected "friendly fire" deaths. It said the strikes have killed more than 15,000 Islamic State militants.

While Airwars noted the difficulty of verifying information in territory held by the IS group, which has kidnapped and killed journalists and activists, other groups have reported similar casualties from the U.S.-led airstrikes.

In a three-part message posted on his official Twitter account Tuesday, al-Abadi said that the council is committed "not to allow any attack on Turkey from Iraqi territory and called on Turkey to respect good relations."

Turkey launched a wave of airstrikes in Iraq last week targeting militants with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in the country's northwest.

Security officials and field commanders of forces allied with the coalition said 15 of their fighters were killed in two separate coalition airstrikes in the province of Lahj. The accidental strikes against allied forces wounded more than 40 fighters, they say, adding that the death toll is expected to rise.

The deadly strikes happened near the strategic military base of al-Anad, which is held by the rebels and was also hit by coalition planes Monday. The coalition also struck north of the port city of Aden.

The airstrikes hit workers' housing for a power plant in Mokha, flattening some of the buildings to the ground, the officials said. A fire erupted in the area, charring many of the corpses, including children, women and elderly people.

That's according to two Obama administration officials who weren't authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

The U.S. has been seeking permission for months for the U.S.-led coalition to use Incirlik as a launching pad. Turkey had been resistant to the idea amid domestic opposition. But in recent days, Turkey has been hit by a surge of violence blamed on IS-linked militants.

The airstrikes that targeted the town of Manbej in Aleppo province were most likely carried out by Syrian army warplanes, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said the death toll was likely to rise because many of the wounded suffered critical injuries.

Twitter and Facebook accounts affiliated with the Islamic State group said 26 people were killed and around 100 others wounded in the attacks.