BEIRUT -- Clashes between two extremist factions in northwestern Syria left dozens of fighters dead on both sides and raised fears of more deadly violence between groups battling President Bashar Assad's troops, activists and insurgents said Tuesday.
The fighting between the al-Qaida-led coalition known as the Levant Liberation Committee and the extremist Jund al-Aqsa group left nearly 70 fighters dead in some of the deadliest clashes between insurgents in years, an opposition monitoring group and a rebel commander said.
The fighting centered in areas where the central province of Hama and the northwestern province of Idlib meet, they said.
A Syrian rebel commander, speaking from Turkey, said Jund al-Aqsa has proved recently that it is a branch of the Islamic State extremist group, which is the rival of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front. Jabhat Fatah al-Sham leads the Levant Liberation Committee. The commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals, said Jund al-Aqsa fighters stormed several areas controlled by the Levant Liberation Committee and killed some of its members, triggering intense fighting.
"There is no solution but to uproot Jund al-Aqsa," the commander said by telephone.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks Syria's war, reported that the Levant Liberation Committee had captured six villages from Jund al-Aqsa.
The Observatory said two days of fighting has left 69 fighters dead, 39 of them from the Levant Liberation Committee. It said the 30 dead from Jund al-Aqsa includes four suicide attackers who blew up vehicles that they were driving.
In audio released late Monday, Abdul-Rahim Attoun, a senior al-Qaida religious official in Syria, blamed Jund al-Aqsa, saying it's a group that paid allegiance to the Islamic State. He added that Jund al-Aqsa was blocking roads used by the Levant Liberation Committee to attack government forces.
A Jund al-Aqsa commander who goes by the name of Karmo said the fighting was triggered by Levant Liberation Committee attacks on Jund al-Aqsa positions.
In the southern city of Daraa, where clashes between insurgents and government forces have continued for days, opposition activist Ahmad al-Masalmeh said an air raid hit a hospital in the city, putting it out of service. The Observatory's chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said there were reports of a hospital being hit and that he was still working on confirmation.
The fighting came as a state-run newspaper said in an editorial that a meeting between the Syrian government and opposition this week will not be "fruitful" unless they are focused on fighting terrorism.
The two-day conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, that begins today is aimed at strengthening a Dec. 30 cease-fire. The government has long referred to all those fighting against it, including mainstream rebels, as "terrorists."
An editorial in the Al-Baath daily, run by Assad's ruling Baath party, said that "without fighting terrorism and defeating terrorists, any solution will not be fruitful."
The cease-fire excludes Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and the Islamic State.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari told state TV that a cease-fire and reconciliation in Syria are on the agenda in the Astana talks.
"Consolidation of the cease-fire, inspecting cases of violation and finalization of regulations for monitoring of the cease-fire will be carried out in the talks," Ansari said upon arrival in Astana. "Political issues related to the trend of reconciliation in Syria are on the agenda in Astana."
Astana hosted a round of talks among the main Syrian players last month. A new round of United Nations-brokered peace talks for Syria is scheduled for Feb. 23. Several previous attempts to end the civil war, which began nearly six years ago, have failed.
In Damascus, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Syria appealed to all parties to reach an agreement for immediate access to the besieged villages of Zabadani, Madaya, Foua and Kfarya, adding that aid has not reached those areas since Nov. 28.
Ali Al-Za'tari said in a statement that "the situation is a looming humanitarian catastrophe." He added that 60,000 "innocent people" live in those areas.
Information for this article was contributed by Nasser Karimi and Albert Aji of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/15/2017