US airstrike in Syria reportedly caused the most civilian casualties since raids started

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - The death toll from an air strike by U.S.-led forces on the northern Syrian province of Aleppo has risen to 52 including seven children, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the British-based Observatory for Human Rights, said the death toll from Friday's strike was the highest civilian loss in a single attack by U.S. and Arab forces since they started air raids against hardline Islamist militant groups in Syria such as Islamic State.

U.S.-led forces are also targeting the group in Iraq.

The Britain-based Observatory said the raid had mistakenly struck civilians in a village on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in Aleppo province, killing members of at least six families.

U.S.-led strikes had killed at least 66 civilians in Syria from the start of the raids on September 23 until Friday's strike, which brought the total to at least 118. The campaign has also killed nearly 2,000 Islamic State fighters, the Observatory said.

The group said at least 13 people were still missing from Friday's raid.

The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties from the U.S.-led strikes seriously and investigates each allegation.

The U.S.-led air strikes have had little impact on the hardline Islamic State group, slowing its advances but failing to weaken it in areas it controls. The group has built its own government in Syria's city of Raqqa, where it is most powerful.

Washington and its allies say their aim is to support what they call moderate rebels fighting against both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State.

But four years into Syria's civil war, no side is close to victory. A third of the population has been made homeless and more than 220,000 people have been killed.