46 killed in attack on mosque
US denies place of worship was target in Syrian airstrike.
AL- JINEH: The US said it carried out an airstrike in Syria against an al-Qaeda meeting but denied deliberately targeting a mosque where a monitor said 46 people were killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of the dead in the Thursday evening raid on Al-Jineh, in the northern province of Aleppo, were civilians.
The US-led coalition has been bombing extremist groups in war-torn Syria since 2014, 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 (15m) 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 meeting location in Syria on 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 hit the village mosque in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.
“We are going to look into allegations of civilian casualties in relation to this strike,” he added.
An AFP correspondent saw rescue workers in white helmets working under spotlights with picks and shovels late on Thursday
I saw 15 bodies and lots of body parts in the debris. Abu Muhammed
to dig people out of the rubble.
Much of the mosque, identified by a black placard outside as a mosque, had been flattened.
The empty prayer hall was covered in debris, and rescue workers stepped through it carefully, deliberating how to break down a wall to search for more survivors.
Rescuers had earlier left the wreckage site but were forced to double back when they heard moaning coming from the rubble.
“More than 100 people were wounded,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said on Thursday, adding that many were still trapped under the collapsed mosque in the village of Al-Jineh, just over 30km west of Aleppo.
The village is held by extremist groups, but the Observatory said no militant factions are present.
Abu Muhammed, a village resident, said that he “heard powerful explosions when the mosque was hit. It was right after prayers at a time when there are 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 recognise some of the bodies,” he added. — AFP