DHAKA: More than 1,000 people have died in two weeks of fighting between al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria and rival rebels.

An activist group said on Thursday adding, by far the bloodiest internecine violence since the revolt began, reports TDS.

The uprising against president Bashar al-Assad has devolved into civil war after a crackdown on peaceful protests and now pits disparate rebel groups against the government and, increasingly, one another.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, said 1,069 people had been killed in clashes and executions since fighting between the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and rival rebel forces erupted at the start of this month.

The count included 130 civilians, 21 of them executed by ISIS at the children`s hospital that was the group`s base in the northern city of Aleppo, the Observatory said.

Another 608 of them were fighters from the Islamist rebel groups and other less ideological rebel groups that have joined forces to confront ISIS.

Fighters from the al Qaeda affiliate accounted for 312 of the dead and the remaining 19 were unidentified, the Observatory said.

BDST: 2036 HRS, JAN 16, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor