A week of clashes between Al-Qaeda militants and a number of rebel militias in several parts of the country has claimed the lives of 500 fighters and civilians, a monitoring group said Friday.
The ultra-extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) mounted attacks against a number of villages and towns in rural Aleppo and Idlib in the northwest, after the Al-Qaeda-inspired group was chased from its positions in the city of Aleppo earlier this week.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that clashes between rebel militias and ISIS militants took place near the towns of Al-Bab, Tal Rifaat, Bazaa, Qabbasin, Kfar Halab and Sheikh Ali, all in the province of Aleppo.
In the town of Anadan, the Observatory said that 20 fighters from the rebel battalions were killed, without indicating the casualty figure in the ranks of ISIS.
A video posted on YouTube late Thursday, after government troops ambushed and killed 45 rebels near the city of Homs, purports to show fighters from accusing leading militias and political figures of sabotaging the fight against the regime.
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