Syria rebel infighting forces over 60,000 to flee homes

World Bulletin/News Desk

Fighting between al Qaeda’s Syria branch and a splinter group in eastern Syria has forced more than 60,000 people to flee their homes, emptied villages and killed scores of fighters, a monitoring group said.

Infighting among rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad has undermined the three-year-old uprising against his rule and killed thousands of people since the start of the year.

Disputes over turf and resources have turned factions against one another, most recently in the oil-producing eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late on Saturday that the Nusra Front had taken over control of the town of Abreeha from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a former al Qaeda affiliate formally disowned by the group this year.

At least 62 fighters had been killed in around four days of clashes in the area, which have emptied Abreeha and the towns of al-Busayrah and al-Zor, whose populations total over 60,000, the Observatory said.

ISIL and the Nusra Front have clashed repeatedly over oilfields and strategic positions in Deir al-Zor, a desert province bordering Iraq.

Al Qaeda’s global leader Ayman al-Zawhri has said ISIL’s entry into Syria’s civil war caused a “political disaster” for militants there and urged the group to redouble its efforts in Iraq instead.