US Airstrike behind Aleppo Mosque Massacre
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The US military has claimed responsibility for airstrikes on a village mosque in Syria’s Aleppo province on Thursday, filled with more than 300 worshippers.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said American airplanes had targeted an al-Qaeda meeting place in the village of al-Jina and that it was not a coalition-led strike, The New Arab reported.
At least 42 people were killed and dozens more wounded in the attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Local sources said the strike happened during evening prayers, while the mosque was full of worshippers.
"The raids by unidentified warplanes targeted a mosque in Aleppo province during evening prayers, killing 42 people, most of them civilians," head of the Britain-based Observatory Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"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 kilometers (20 miles) west of Aleppo.
A US spokesperson told Airwars, a group that monitors coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, that the target had been “assessed to be a meeting place for al-Qaeda, and we took the strike.”
“It happened to be across the street from where there is a mosque,” said Major Josh Jacques, a CENTCOM spokesperson, adding that the mosque was not hit directly.
Footage published by Halab Today, an online media group focused on news in Aleppo, showed piles of rubble where the mosque allegedly stood.
