DAMASCUS, March 16 (Xinhua) -- A total of 42 people were killed when airstrikes targeted a mosque in a town in the countryside of Aleppo province in northern Syria on Thursday, a monitor group reported.

Most of the slain people were civilians, when the airstrikes targeted the mosque in the town of Jineh in the western countryside of Aleppo province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The death toll is likely to rise as tens of people were wounded, some in critical conditions.

The UK-based watchdog group, however, stopped short of identifying the warplanes which carried out the strikes.

It said that the airstrikes have intensified in general on Thursday against the rebel positions in the western countryside of Aleppo.