BEIRUT -- U.S.-led coalition aircraft unleashed a wave of airstrikes targeting the Islamic State group's stronghold of Raqqa in eastern Syria in what the coalition said Sunday was one of its most sustained aerial operations carried out in Syria.
The Islamic State said at least 10 people were killed and many others wounded in the attacks, which activists said triggered successive explosions that shook the city and created panic among residents. The U.S.-led coalition often targets Islamic State-held towns and cities in Syria, but the overnight strikes on Raqqa were rare in their intensity.
In a statement, the coalition said it carried out 18 airstrikes throughout Raqqa province, destroying a number of Islamic State vehicles and 16 bridges. An earlier statement said the attacks also destroyed vital Islamic State-controlled structures and transit routes in Syria.
"The significant airstrikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq," said coalition spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Gilleran, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
"This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria, and it will have debilitating effects on Daesh's ability to move" from Raqqa, he said.
Raqqa is considered the capital of the so-called Islamic caliphate, or state under Islamic law, declared a year ago by the Islamic State in territories it controls in Iraq and Syria. The sustained airstrikes add pressure on the militants, who are still reeling from last month's loss of the border town of Tal Abyad to Kurdish fighters. The town on the Turkish border was a major avenue for commerce and smuggling for the group.
A militant website said 10 people were killed and dozens of others wounded. An Islamic State-affiliated Facebook page said one civilian was among those killed and that 10 were wounded, including women and children. It said the bombing destroyed several bridges.
A Raqqa-based, anti-Islamic State activist network reported eight civilians were killed by the coalition airstrikes, including a 10-year-old child.
The casualty figures could not be independently confirmed.
The network, called Raqqa Is Being Silently Slaughtered, said at least one airstrike targeted a group of Islamic State members in the city center. Another targeted an Islamic State checkpoint, while a third destroyed large parts of an extremist-held brick factory in the city. It said seven bridges used by civilians inside the city were also destroyed.
In the remote northeastern city of Hassakeh, Islamic State suicide bombers detonated an explosives-laden truck near a main power plant Sunday. State-run news agency SANA reported casualties and damage in the plant on the southern edge of the city.
Fighting has raged in Hassakeh since the Islamic State attacked several southern neighborhoods held by government troops last month. The violence has forced tens of thousands of residents to flee. The predominantly Kurdish city was split between government forces and Kurdish fighters, who have been fighting the Islamic State separately.
In Iraq, a Defense Ministry statement said government forces repelled an Islamic State attack Sunday morning on the town of Haditha and the nearby Haditha dam in Anbar province. At least 20 militants were killed in the failed attack, the statement said.
Iraqi forces, backed by Shiite militias, have been struggling to recapture areas lost to the Islamic State in the country's west and north.
In May, the militant group scored a victory, overrunning Ramadi, the provincial capital of western Anbar province. Yet Haditha and some other towns remain under control of government forces and allied Sunni tribal fighters.
Meanwhile, state media said Syrian forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters entered a rebel-held mountain resort near the border with Lebanon, a day after launching a major offensive to capture the town.
State-run Syrian TV said troops entered the town of Zabadani from the western Jamaiyat district Sunday. Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV ran footage purportedly showing Hezbollah fighters in the town.
Zabadani's capture would tighten Hezbollah's grip on Syrian territories bordering Lebanon and strengthen the Syrian government's control over of the Beirut-Damascus highway.
Rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad have held Zabadani since shortly after Syria's conflict began in March 2011. The United Nations says the conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and wounded at least 1 million.
Information for this article was contributed by Sameer N. Yacoub, Maamoun Youssef and staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/06/2015