A general view shows the damage and
debris following a reported airstrike on a
mosque in the village of Al-Jineh in Aleppo
province late on March 16, 2017. The US
military says it carried out an air strike in
northern Syria against an Al-Qaeda
target, but denies deliberately targeting a
mosque where dozens were killed
according to the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights.
The US military says it carried out an air
strike in northern Syria against an Al-
Qaeda target, but denies deliberately
targeting a mosque where at least 42
people were killed according to an
independent monitor.
The US-led coalition has been bombing
jihadist groups in war-torn Syria for
several years, with hundreds of civilians
unintentionally killed in the country and
in neighbouring Iraq.
“We did not target a mosque, but the
building that we did target — which was
where the meeting took place — is about
50 feet (15 metres) from a mosque that is
still standing,” said Colonel John J.
Thomas, spokesman for US Central
Command.
According to a Centcom statement: “US
forces conducted an airstrike on an Al-
Qaeda in Syria meeting location March 16
in Idlib, Syria, killing several terrorists.”
The Centcom spokesman later clarified
that the precise location of the strike was
unclear — but that it was the same one
widely reported to have targeted the
village mosque in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo
province.
“We are going to look into any
allegations of civilian casualties in
relation to this strike,” he added, when
asked about reports from the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights that 42
people had died in the attack on the
village mosque, most of them civilians.
The head of the Britain-based
Observatory Rami Abdel Rahman said
“the raids by unidentified warplanes
targeted a mosque in Aleppo province
during evening prayers, killing 42 people,
most of them civilians”.
“More than 100 people were wounded,”
he said, adding that many were still
trapped under the collapsed mosque in
the village of Al-Jineh, just over 30
kilometres (20 miles) west of Aleppo.
The village is held by rebel and Islamist
groups, but no jihadist factions are
present.
– Body parts in the debris –
Rescue workers struggled to pull
survivors from rubble, and dozens of
residents were still unaccounted for, the
Observatory said.
Abu Muhammed, a village resident, told
AFP that he “heard powerful explosions
when the mosque was hit. It was right
after the prayer at a time when there is
usually religious lessons for men in it”.
“I saw 15 bodies and lots of body parts in
the debris when I arrived. We couldn’t
even recognise some of the bodies,” he
added.
An AFP reporter at the scene said
rescuers earlier left the wreckage site but
were forced to double back when they
heard moaning coming from the debris.
Footage published by Halab Today, an
online media group focused on news in
Aleppo, showed piles of rubble where
the mosque allegedly stood.
More than 320,000 people have been
killed in Syria since the conflict began six
years ago with anti-government protests.
A cessation of hostilities was brokered by
rebel backer Turkey and regime ally
Russia in December, but violence has
continued across much of the country.
The Observatory, which relies on a
network of sources inside Syria for its
information, says it determines whose
planes carry out raids according to type,
location, flight patterns and munitions
used.
But the skies over Aleppo province are
busy, with Syrian regime and Russian
warplanes as well as US-led coalition
aircraft carrying out air strikes.
Russia began a military intervention in
Syria in September 2015, and in the past
has dismissed allegations of civilian
deaths in its strikes.
The US-led coalition, meanwhile, has
been bombing jihadist groups in Syria
since 2014.
The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic
State group said earlier this month that
its raids in Iraq and Syria had
unintentionally killed at least 220
civilians since 2014.
Critics say the real number is much
higher.
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