US claims Syria strike, denies targeting mosque

AL JINEH AFP March17, 2017-The US said it carried out an air strike in Syria against an Al-Qaeda meeting but denied deliberately targeting a mosque where a monitor said on Friday 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 jihadist groups in war-torn Syria since 2014, with hundreds of civilians killed in the country and in neighbouring Iraq.     “We did not target a mosque...”, said Colonel John J. Thomas, spokesman for US Central Command.     “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 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Aleppo.