How the Pentagon 'fights terrorists': US airstrike in northern Syria targeted mosque complex

Alex Emmons
The Intercept
Fri, 17 Mar 2017 17:58 UTC

© Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

Syrian civil defense volunteers, known as the White Helmets, dig through the rubble of a mosque following a reported airstrike on a mosque in the village of Al-Jineh in Aleppo province late on March 16, 2017.

The Pentagon Spokesperson insisted that the U.S. airstrike in the rebel-held village of Al-Jina in northern Syria on Thursday night did not hit a mosque. "The area was extensively surveilled prior to the strike in order to minimize civilian casualties," Navy Captain Jeff Davis wrote in an email. "We deliberately did not target the mosque."

He even unclassified and circulated a photo. And he pointed out that on the left, you can see a small mosque, still standing.

© U.S. Navy

This image, provided by the Defense Department’s director of defense press operations, purports to show the post-strike view in al-Jinah, Syria, on March 16.

But to the people on the ground, the photo tells a different story.

Activists and first responders say the building that was targeted was a part of the mosque complex — and that the charred rubble shown in the photo was where 300 people were praying when the bombs began to hit.

More than 42 people were killed and dozens more injured, according to monitoring groups and local activists. First responders with the Syrian Civil Defence — known as the "White Helmets" — rushed to treat the wounded and dig corpses out of the rubble.

An administration official told the Washington Post that two armed, Reaper drones fired "roughly [the] entirety of their Hellfire payload and followed up w/ 500 lb bomb."

The building "was holding a meeting of al Qaeda members," Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesperson told The Intercept. Davis said military officials "believe dozens of core al Qaeda terrorists were killed."

Comment: Al Qaeda in Syria is Al Nusra; Al Nusra was the fighting forced the Russians and Syrians liberated Aleppo from. The US and allies berated Russia mercilessly for attacking Al Nusra in Aleppo last year because they were then calling them 'rebels'... and now they're 'terrorists again?

According to the monitoring group Airwars, locals say the building the drones struck is part of a mosque and religious school, which was built as an expansion several years ago. Local activist Mohamed al Shaghel told the New York Times that the people in the building had "no affiliation with any military faction or any political side."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring organization, said that the strike took place between the city of Idlib and Aleppo, and called it a "massacre."

A sign shown outside the south side of the building reads "Umar ibn Al-Khattab mosque" and indicates it is a religious school. Numerous pictures showing fragments of U.S. hellfire missiles also appeared on social media.

© Ibrahim Ebu Leys/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The debris after U.S. airstrikes hit a mosque during night prayer in Al-Jineh village of Atarib district in Aleppo, Syria on March 17, 2017.

The Pentagon has a history of initially denying involvement in some of its worst atrocities. For instance, when the U.S. bombed a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in 2015, the Pentagon initially claimed it was not targeting the hospital. A Pentagon spokesman said that the destruction of the hospital, which was bombed for more than 30 minutes, killing 42 people, was "collateral damage." The Pentagon's story continued to change over coming days, until it eventually admitted responsibility.

Comment: The release of photograph/video evidence by the Pentagon is an unusually transparent move for them; usually only Russia shows what it says it does. Stranger still, the White Helmets and SOHR are backing up a case that makes the Americans look bad - something they normally reserve for Russian airstrikes. Curious...

Then again; why was the Pentagon bombing anything in Syria in the first place - they haven't been invited to do so by the Syrian government.

From RT:

While the Pentagon claims that it targeted a meeting hall full of terrorists, organizations which Washington considers "reputable", such as the UK-based Syrian Observatory on Human Rights and the White Helmets group, clearly stated that a mosque was destroyed. Washington apparently only considers sources "credible" when it suits their pitch of the story, retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski told RT.

"If they can find somebody to verify what they want to put out, then the White Helmets report will be fine, otherwise, they are not credible," Kwiatkowski said.

"The White Helmets have been notoriously unreliable on a lot of things and yet the US military and the Pentagon has been very happy to reference them as a credible resource in the past and I'm sure in the future they will as well," she stressed.

The Pentagon's version also contradicts the video and witness accounts from the scene. Footage from the scene provided by the pro-opposition Qasioun News shows the aftermath and the destruction of the Al-Jinah mosque.

Other videos widely available online also show wide-scale destruction from the strike, although is impossible to definitely verify footage coming from the rebel-controlled area.

...

The Russian Defense Ministry earlier on Friday also asked Washington for an explanation, after a piece of an American missile was found at the site. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said there was no doubt the US missiles were indeed intended for terrorists.

"We have no doubt that the US forces were aiming at terrorists," Zakharova said, adding, that while tragic mistakes that claim the lives of civilians do happen at war, unlike "some of our opponents, we are not going to blame them for 'intentional' killing of civilians and destruction of infrastructure."