Officials said three separate airstrikes were conducted on three different militant tactical units in the Manbij area – a stronghold for the Islamic State terror group, also known regionally by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL.
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He neglected to comment on reports that there were strikes in Manbij on a second day that also resulted in civilian deaths.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry however said the attack was carried out by French forces.
French President Francois Hollande disputed that French planes were responsible, while a spokesman for the US -led coalition said there were “multiple national aircraft” striking in Manbij, making it hard for the Syrian government to detect who conducted specific strikes.
Asked about the Al-Tukhar raids, the US-led coalition said it had recently “conducted air strikes near Manbij” and was looking into the reports of civilian casualties.
The death toll estimates ranged from at least 56 to almost 100 – among them many women and children.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that the Pentagon would investigate claims by human rights organizations – including the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces – that American airstrikes have killed over 100 civilians since June.
“One concern is that usually one would expect that a party to a conflict would be able to improve its civilian casualty, but it looks like the USA -led coalition is worsening, particularly in the Manbij area”, Neil Sammonds, Amnesty International’s lead researcher on Syria, told ABC News.
According to Airwars, Johnson adds, “the total number of civilian deaths since the beginning of airstrikes in September 2014 has been 190”.
The council is allied to the USA -backed Kurdish and Arab alliance known as the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), which has been fighting ISIS in northern Syria with the support of air strikes from a US -led coalition.
Activists on the “Manbij News” page called for protests in several Turkish cities including Istanbul and Gaziantep.
US -led airstrikes on an Islamic State (ISIS)-held village in Syria have killed dozens of civilians, including many women and children, in what is considered the deadliest attack on civilians since the start of the campaign against ISIS.
The strikes were also condemned by the United Nations children agency, UNICEF, which urged “all parties to the conflict in Syria to make every effort to avoid the loss of civilian lives”.
“No matter where they are in Syria or under whose control they live – absolutely nothing justifies attacks on children”, UNICEF said.
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“There must be a prompt, independent and transparent investigation to determine what happened, who was responsible, and how to avoid further needless loss of civilian life”.
