Syria: Islamists rebel groups fight al-Qaeda allies in Raqqa city
Rival Islamist rebel groups clashed in the Syrian city of Raqqa on Monday, residents said, as local fighters tried to drive out a foreign-led al-Qaeda affiliate that has also seized towns across the border in Iraq.
Activists opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said dozens of Syrian members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had switched sides, joining other Sunni Islamist factions which have taken advantage of a local backlash against the ISIL and the foreign al Qaeda jihadists prominent among its leaders.
The battles in Raqqa, a provincial capital on the Euphrates River in Syria’s largely desert east, left bodies clad in the black favored by al-Qaeda fighters lying in the streets. They followed similar violence elsewhere in recent days which has seen the ISIL lose fighters and abandon some of its positions.