The Associated Press reports: Syrian government warplanes pounded an Islamic State group stronghold as well as other towns controlled by the jihadis Sunday, conducting more than a dozen airstrikes and killing at least 11 people, activists said.

For more than a year, President Bashar Assad’s air force rarely targeted territory controlled by the Islamic State group in northern Syria, instead focusing on mainstream rebel groups. But government jets have begun hitting the extremists more regularly since the jihadis overran much of neighboring northern and western Iraq in June.

Even in that context, the intensity of Sunday’s air raids appeared unusually high, with at least 19 strikes hitting the group’s stronghold of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory directory Rami Abdurrahman said six of those raids targeted a military court.

He said at least 16 Islamic State members were killed in Raqqa, and around 40 wounded. He said there were an additional 22 civilian casualties, but he didn’t have an exact breakdown of dead and wounded. [Continue reading…]