US Denies Striking Syrian Mosque After Dozens Reported Killed

It added that besides the 42 fatalities, over 100 people were injured in the blast and the subsequent collapse of the structure, with many more trapped under the rubble.

The airstrike also came a day after suicide attacks in the capital, Damascus, killed at least 30 people.

Much of the concern is that the Mosque, located only 15 meters away from the air raid, was also struck, although the U.S. Central Command denies any wrongdoing. On the other side of Aleppo, which was recaptured by the Syrian army in December, Russia conducted dozens of airstrikes on ISIS targets, according to pro-government Al Masdar News.

United States aircraft also target jihadist rebels in the area. ” “There were 200-300 people in the mosque”.

The strike targeted a meeting location in Idlib, Centcom said.

The airstrike came a month after a Central Intelligence Agency drone strike killed Al Qaeda’s #2, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, in Syria.

In January, the U.S. was forced to admit the US-led coalition had killed at least 188 civilians so far in its Syrian and Iraqi bombing campaigns.

While declining to comment specifically on what level USA mission planners were accounting for possible civilian casualties during the al Jinah strike, he did say command officials adhered to “strict” parameters concerning acceptable civilian casualties. Early reports did not include information on who was responsible for the bombing, but images reportedly taken at the scene appearing to show bomb shrapnel suggested US involvement. The coalition has been targeting the Islamic State group and al-Qaida’s affiliate in northern Syria for more than two years, but it was not clear how the opposition group knew who was behind the attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring network, described the attack as a “massacre” and said the dead were mostly civilians.

The US said it had carried out an air strike, killing several al-Qaeda militants, but had not hit a mosque.

In periodic reports detailing the civilian casualties it has been able to confirm, Centcom has admitted to having killed at least 220 civilians in carrying out more than 18,900 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the air war began in 2014.