The coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Syria may have accidentally hit allied rebels during an air strike at the end of last month, a U.S. military spokesman said Saturday.

Coalition forces carried out three air strikes against tactical IS units and vehicles near Ma'ra on May 28, Centcom spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said in a statement.

The United Nations said Friday it was still awaiting approval from Damascus to reach two besieged areas in Syria, correcting information provided by its top envoy to the war-torn country.

Terrified medical staff rushed to rescue nine newborns after heavy bombing near a children's hospital in Syria's divided Aleppo city, according to the leading pediatrician there.

Syrian rebels reopened a vital supply line by capturing two villages Wednesday from the Islamic State group as it came under pressure on a range of fronts in Syria and Iraq.

IS has controlled large areas of both countries since declaring its self-styled "caliphate" in 2014 but is losing territory in the face of separate assaults.

Thirteen-year-old Ali Rajab is on his feet an average of 12 hours a day, cleaning, filling perfume bottles and helping sell mobile phones at the shop in Beirut where he works.

Still, he prefers it to his previous, more physically demanding jobs, which included even longer hours pushing a vegetable and fruit cart and making supermarket home deliveries.

Syrian regime troops supported by Russia and U.S.-backed fighters pressed twin offensives against the Islamic State group Monday as pressure built on the jihadists' northern strongholds in the war-torn country.

The advance comes as 17 civilians -- nearly half of them children -- were killed in air raids on a popular market in eastern Syria on the first day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

U.S.-backed fighters advanced Sunday to within five kilometers (three miles) of the Islamic State group's stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria, threatening a crucial supply link for the jihadists.

The assault on the city by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) adds to pressure on the jihadist group in Syria, which also faces another offensive by Russian-backed regime troops in its bastion province of Raqa.

France on Friday called on Russia to pressure Syria to allow humanitarian aid to reach besieged areas, as the Security Council met to discuss plans for airdrops of food and medicine.

"The top priority is to get those who have influence over Damascus, starting with Russia, to strongly increase their pressure on the regime," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters as he headed into the closed meeting.

Aid drops to besieged areas in Syria are not expected to begin immediately, the United Nations said Thursday, despite urgent calls from France and Britain for deliveries to get started.

Pressure mounted on the Islamic State group Tuesday as a Kurdish-Arab alliance launched a major assault north of the jihadists' Syrian bastion of Raqa and Iraqi forces advanced on their stronghold of Fallujah.

The twin offensives marked some of the most serious ground efforts against IS since the group declared its self-styled "caliphate" straddling the Syrian-Iraqi border in 2014.