Syrian Rebel Groups Rout Al Qaeda Affiliated Group

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War News Updates: 1/5/14

 

AMMAN, Jordan -- Infighting among Islamist anti-government groups operating in northern Syria continued for a third day, as rebel factions engage in a large-scale rout against an extremist Al Qaeda affiliated group.

 

Jaysh Al-Mujahideen (the army of the Mujahideen), a new coalition of presumably moderate Islamist groups, as well as factions affiliated with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front consolidated their gains against the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) in what activists are hailing as a "second revolution." The Turkish government reacted with a shutdown of the vital Bab Al-Salameh crossing on the Syrian border.

 

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http://youtu.be/AynSWQzfTR4

 

More at LA Times

[Valin]

Syrian Rebel Infighting Spreads Throughout Syria

 

The recent infighting has been the most serious since armed groups initially rose to try overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

 

Clashes between Syrian rebels and their rivals from an al-Qaeda-linked faction have spread from the country's opposition-held areas in the north to a key eastern city, activists have said.

 

Monday's rebel-on-rebel fighting in the eastern city of Raqqa, a long-time bastion of an al-Qaeda-linked group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), reflects a widening war within a war in Syria, as the Free Syrian Army tries to quell more hardline elements of the opposition.

 

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[Valin]

Syrian rebels, al-Qaeda infighting escalates on Turkey's doorstep

İREM KARAKAYA

12 January 2014, İSTANBUL

 

The Syrian civil war that erupted in March 2011 against Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad is entering its third year, and the war within the war that is taking place between Syrian rebel groups and the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is intensifying near Turkey's Syrian border.

 

After ISIL's brutal killing of a well-known doctor and senior rebel commander, Hussein Suleiman, in Aleppo in early January, hatred for the al-Qaeda-linked group exploded and one of the most serious episodes of internal fighting among the opposition groups broke out, coming just ahead of an international conference on the Syrian crisis, Geneva II. In an audio statement issued on Tuesday, ISIL vowed to crush the rebel groups fighting it and to target members of the Syrian National Coalition, signaling that the rebel-on-rebel fight is not likely to end in the near future.

 

In a clear show of deepening disagreement between opposition groups, the members of the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, postponed a vote on whether or not to attend Geneva II, which will begin in Montreux, Switzerland, on Jan. 22 and hopes to find a solution to the nearly three-year-long civil war, reported The Associated Press on Tuesday.

 

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