Coalition bombing raid kills 4 soldiers at Syrian army camp: Monitor

Four Syrian soldiers were killed and 13 injured when a bombing raid by the US-led coalition hit an army camp in the east of the country, a monitor reported on Monday.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an air raid "by the international coalition" on Sunday hit the camp in the west of Deir Ezzor province, "two kilometres from an area controlled by the Islamic State group". 

The observatory said it was the first time that a strike from the US-led coalition had killed Syrian government troops.

"Regime forces have never previously been hit by raids from the international coalition, which was targeting jihadist bases and oil tankers in Deir Ezzor," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said. 

The US-led coalition denied it was involved in the reported attack.

"We've seen those Syrian reports but we did not conduct any strikes in that part of Deir Ezzor yesterday. So we see no evidence," said Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the coalition.

He said the coalition's only strikes in Deir Ezzor on Sunday were 34 miles away from the area where the troops were allegedly killed.

Syria's foreign ministry however described the reported attack as a "flagrant aggression", saying it "blatantly violates the objectives of the UN charter".

It was not reported by the observatory or Syria which member of the coalition, which now includes the UK and France, carried out the raid.

The US-led coalition has been targeting IS in Syria since September last year, expanding a campaign that began with raids in neighbouring Iraq.

Its operations have expanded further in recent days, partly in response to the deadly attacks in Paris claimed by IS.

On Sunday its jets hit IS positions in Raqqa province, killing at least 49 people, mainly IS militants, according to the Observatory.

It said that eight children and five women were killed in the raids.

The monitor relies on a network of activists, medical staff and fighters on the ground who identify jets based on model, flight patterns and munition types.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 250,000 people since March 2011, and another four million have been forced to flee the country.