The US military today denied that coalition aircraft bombed a mosque in Iraq after Baghdad officials said American-led warplanes had targeted Islamic State jihadists meeting at the mosque in Tal Afar.
US Central Command, which is overseeing the air war against the IS group in Iraq and Syria, said "we can confirm that coalition aircraft did not strike a mosque as some of the press reporting has alleged."
The statement came after Iraq's ministry of defense said the US-led coalition had gone after several senior leaders of the IS group, including the outfit's second-in-commmand, in a strike on a gathering in the Martyrs' Mosque in Tal Afar's Al-Ayadiya district.
The US military also said it had "no information to corroborate" that the IS group's second-in-command, Abu Alaa al-Afari, had been killed.
The Iraqi government statement did not make clear if it believed Afari had been killed in the strike.
Afari's name emerged last month in reports claiming that IS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was incapacitated in a coalition strike and handed over the helm of the organization to Afari.
The Pentagon has said there was no evidence to indicate Baghdadi had been wounded.
