The US military on Thursday said that it carried out a deadly airstrike on an al-Qaeda meeting in northern Syria and would investigate reports that more than 40 civilians were killed when a mosque was struck in the raid.
“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,” US Central Command (Centcom) spokesman Colonel John Thomas said.
“US forces conducted an airstrike on an al-Qaeda in Syria meeting location March 16 in Idlib, Syria, killing several terrorists,” a Centcom statement said.
Photo: AFP
Thomas later said 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 said when asked about reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that 42 people had died, most of them civilians.
“We take that very seriously,” he said, adding that Centcom had not received any direct reports of civilian casualties.
Thomas said the unilateral US strike “destroyed one half of a building in which the meeting was occurring.”
The Syrian Civil Defense, volunteer paramedics known as the White Helmets, earlier said at least 35 people were killed.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 42 people were killed, mainly civilians.
Separately, anti-aircraft missiles were launched from Syria into Israeli-controlled territory early yesterday following a series of Israeli airstrikes in Syria, the Israeli military said.
The military said its warplanes struck several targets in Syria and were back in Israeli-controlled airspace when several antiaircraft missiles were launched from Syria toward the Israeli jets.
Israeli aerial defense systems intercepted one of the missiles, the army said.
It would not say whether any other missiles struck Israeli-held territory, but it said the safety of Israeli civilians and the safety of the aircraft “were not compromised.”
The army said the incident was the cause of sirens that wailed in Jewish settlement communities in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank.
The military would not immediately comment on media reports that explosions were heard in the area.
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