Somehow I got on CAIR’s mailing list. Yesterday, they sent out an email demanding that the US answer for an attack that they claim was launched against a mosque in Syria near Raqqa.
“We call for a full and transparent investigation of allegations that our military killed dozens of Syrian civilians while they were at prayer. The results of this investigation must be made public to either refute the allegations or, if the reports are correct, to take the actions necessary to hold those responsible accountable and to prevent such incidents in the future. The war against ISIS and terrorism can never be advanced over the bodies of Syrian civilians.”
The article that they sent me to support their contention comes from something called Bellingcat. The problem is that it leans heavily on eye witness reports on the ground.
Mohamed al-Shaghel, a local activist, told the New York Times that the the people in the building had “no affiliation with any military faction or any political side.” Other locals told monitoring group Airwars that the building is part of a mosque and a religious school. Mr. Abdul Kareem of OGN mentioned that the “according to locals, this is not a [Jabhat] Fateh al-Sham or Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham facility. This is a Tablighi Jamaat facility, where they gather every Thursday to go and give dawah to the people.”
Some have suggested that a recruiting meeting, taking place in the meeting rooms of the mosque, for organizations like JFS or HTS was targeted.
It is thus possible that the US was aiming to kill one or more high value targets, or a group of militants, linked to the various Syrian groups that are designated by the US as a terrorist organisation. Over the past years, the US has unilaterally been striking individual members of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) and HTS. These strikes are thus separate from the CJTF-OIR campaign.
Perhaps the US was really not aware that the targeted building was a mosque built in recent years, which would explain their noticeable surprise in their initial claims from the ground that a mosque was bombed. After all, their imagery documented to them that the sole mosque they were aware of was still standing and undamaged, which explains why they said they targeted a location 50 feet away from the mosque – they referred to the old mosque.
Yeah, they were probably the same eye witnesses that complained George HW Bush had bombed a powdered milk factory in Bagdad during Desert Storm.
Or this lady;
Eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable – especially eye witnesses in that part of the world.
From the LA Times;
After the Pentagon released the photo, some Syrians said on social media that the building destroyed was a newly opened mosque and that the standing structure was an older place of worship.
The military is investigating whether civilians were inadvertently killed or injured, Davis added, but he said the photo showed the mosque was “relatively unscathed.”
“As of the moment, we’re not aware of any credible allegations of civilian casualties,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with a network of activists in Syria, reported Thursday that an airstrike hit the mosque in Al Jinah village and at least 42 people were killed. The group did not specify who launched the air attack.
I wonder if CAIR will get just as exercised over the fact that ISIS murderers are hiding among the innocent population. I haven’t heard a peep from CAIR about the systematic murder of thousands of Syrian and Iraqi citizens.
Their website claims that they oppose ISIS, they take pride in the fact that ISIS has condemned their organization, but you know, I hear that a tenet of their religion allows them to lie to kafirs and infidels, so that works against any statement they might make.
