US Airstrikes Kill Dozens of Terrorists in Syria; Syria Claims 42 Also Killed in Mosque Airstrike

U.S. air forces struck an al-Qaeda meeting in the Syrian province of Idib today (March 16, 2017), killing dozens of suspected terrorists, and reports indicate that civilians were also killed and injured by airstrikes at a nearby mosque, according to the NBC News website.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights  -- a nonpartisan group based in Britain that catalogs military actions in Syria -- said at least 42 people were killed in an airstrike on a mosque in the rebel-held village of al-Jinnah southwest of Atareb, which is in the western countryside of the neighboring province of Aleppo.


Some human rights activists and monitors claimed that the U.S. airstrikes hit the mosque.


But a senior U.S. military official told NBC News that while there was a mosque about 50 feet from the U.S. target, the U.S. has photographic evidence that the mosque was not hit and was still standing. He would not rule out the possibility that the mosque may have been struck or blown up later by someone else.