Dozens dead in US-led strikes on jihadist-run Syrian prison

US-led coalition air strikes killed nearly 60 people at a Syrian prison run by the Islamic State group, a monitor said today, as Washington insisted the jihadists remain its only target.

The coalition has been hitting IS in Syria and Iraq since mid-2014 but has also been involved in recent confrontations with President Bashar al-Assad's forces, raising fears of the United States being drawn into Syria's civil war.

The White House yesterday accused Assad's regime of preparing a potential chemical attack and warned it would pay a "heavy price", but Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Washington was determined to keep a strict focus on fighting IS.

Yesterday's strikes hit an IS-run jail in Syria's Mayadeen at dawn, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)