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7,000 killed in rebel infighting

Published:Monday | June 30, 2014 | 12:00 AM

BEIRUT (AP):

UP TO 7,000 people, mostly rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad, have been killed in infighting among rival Islamic groups in Syria across opposition-held territory in the north, an activist group said in a report yesterday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it has documented 7,000 deaths as a result of the rebel-on-rebel violence since January, when infighting erupted in northern Syria. The death toll also included 650 civilians who got caught in the crossfire of the fighting between the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and its rival, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - a group which formally broke with al-Qaida earlier this year and has in recent weeks become a major fighting force in neighbouring Iraq.

Documenting conflict

The Observatory has been documenting the Syrian conflict through a network of activists inside Syria since it started in March 2011 as largely peaceful protest against Assad's rule. It turned into an armed uprising after some opposition supporters picked up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown on dissent. It gradually became a civil war, in which more than 160,000 people have been killed, according to activists, and nearly a third of Syria's population of 23 million has been displaced.