Pentagon denies striking mosque in Syria, says it killed al Qaeda militants

The Pentagon on Friday denied accusations by a Syrian rebel group that the United States had targeted a mosque in Syria and, in a rare move, showed an aerial image to illustrate the mosque was intact and the building destroyed was in fact across the street.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis, addressing a Pentagon news conference, said he believed dozens of al Qaeda fighters were killed in the Thursday strike by manned and unmanned U.S. aircraft on an al Qaeda meeting place in the village of al-Jina, Aleppo.

Davis said the U.S. military had not yet seen any credible allegations of civilian casualties, including on social media.

The Pentagon released to the public the image it showed to reporters: a black and white aerial image showing the mosque still standing across the street from a building that had been reduced to rubble by the strike.

Next to the charred plot where the al Qaeda militants had met was another building, which was also still intact.

Read the whole story from Reuters.