FILE – In this Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012 file photo, destroyed buildings, including the Dar Al-Shifa hospital, bottom, lay in ruins following airstrikes in Aleppo, Syria, in this file photo dated Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. In the summer of 2012 fighting spread to the former commercial capital, Syria’s largest city Aleppo, with rebel forces controlling some neighborhoods, but the battle for overall control continues to this day and much of the city lays in ruins. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — Two activist groups say an al-Qaida-linked group has seized a town in northern Syria from rival opposition fighters.
The capture of the town of al-Bab on Monday by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is part of nearly two weeks of intense fighting between the al-Qaida-affiliated group and rebels from Islamist and more moderate factions.
The rebel-on-rebel clashes are the most serious since the Syrian civil war began.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Media Center say “Islamic State” gunmen are conducting house-to-house raids in al-Bab in search of rival rebels and civilians who support them.
Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman says the al-Qaida-linked group has arrested dozens of its opponents in the town.
