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A key commander of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army was killed recently by Syria’s al-Qaeda rebels, a sign the opposition to the Bashar al-Assad regime is fracturing and Islamist rebels are on the rise.
Kamal Hamami, the FSA commander, was killed as he went to a meeting of al-Qaeda-backed rebels to discuss joint operations against the Syrian army, a U.S. official said, confirming Middle East press reports.
At least 29 people have been killed in fighting between Kurdish and Al-Nusra Front fighters in northern Syria in the past two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday.
At least 19 Al-Nusra Front fighters and 10 Kurds have been killed since the day before yesterday in clashes in the oil region of Hassakeh,” the NGO said.
Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos has met 30 rebels of the ELN, the country’s second largest armed group, who laid down their arms.
Santos called the development “a great step towards peace”.
The ELN, or National Liberation Army, is not part of the peace talks with Colombia’s largest rebel group, the FARC, but its leaders have expressed interest in joining the negotiations.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has confirmed the death in a US drone strike of its deputy leader Saeed al-Shehri, whose killing has been announced a number of times by Yemeni authorities.
“Sheikh Saeed al-Shehri, aka Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, was killed in a US drone strike,” said a leader in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Ibrahim al-Rubaish in a video posted on Islamist websites Wednesday.
The top negotiator for Colombia’s leftist FARC rebel group said Monday he was confident that the nearly 50 year old guerrilla war is almost over.
“We understand, and the country understands it as well, that wars are not eternal, and we feel certain somehow that Colombia is near the end of the conflict,” Ivan Marquez said in a radio interview.
The Democratic Republic of Congo says its forces have killed 120 rebels and captured another dozen in fighting in North Kivu province.
Government spokesman Lambert Mende said Monday that about 10 army soldiers have died in the fighting north of Goma, the provincial capital.
The United Nations mission in Congo says it started Sunday when the M23, which holds territory near Goma, attacked government troops near the towns of Mutaho and Rusayo.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda-linked fighters have clashed again, just days after a leader of the FSA was shot dead at a checkpoint after a row between fighters from the two groups.
Activists told Al Jazeera that the FSA and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Saturday fought for control of a strategic checkpoint in Aleppo city’s Bustan al-Qasr district, a strategic gateway between rebel and government controlled territory.