BEIRUT (AP)
-- A powerful Kurdish militia said Tuesday it is mobilizing against
al-Qaida-linked rebels in northeastern Syria after a Kurdish opposition
leader was killed in the area.
The fight
between the Kurds and the extremists has become a war within a war in
Syria's oil-rich region. Clashes between Kurdish gunmen and members of
al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant over the past weeks left dozens of gunmen dead from both sides.
The
fighting claimed a prominent casualty Tuesday, as a car bomb killed
Kurdish leader Issa Hisso, said the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, the
most powerful faction of the ethnic group in the region.
"We
condemn this ugly criminal act and we promise the martyr and his
comrades that we will stand idle," the party said in a statement.
Hisso
opposed and was imprisoned in the past by President Bashar Assad's
regime. He also spoke out against radical Islamic groups, including the
al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant. Both groups have gained influence in the opposition after
leading several battles.
Though no group
claimed responsibility Tuesday for Hisso's slaying, suspicion fell on
the al-Qaida-linked organizations. Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for the
party, said fighters hoped to clear the groups out of Kurdish areas.
"The
military units have declared mobilization," he said. "The jihadi forces
or forces of darkness have been attacking Kurdish areas so it is normal
that there be military and political mobilization.
Kurdish gunmen and al-Qaida-linked groups already have fought sporadic battles over the past months.
Kurds,
the largest ethnic minority in Syria, make up more than 10 percent of
the country's 23 million people. Their loyalties in the conflict are
split, though Kurds in opposition areas have carved out a once
unthinkable degree of independence in their areas. They've creating
their own police forces, issuing their own license plates and
exuberantly going public with their language and culture.
Meanwhile
Tuesday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a
car bomb went off in the town of Maabadeh in Hassakeh province. It said
the blast wounded some people and was followed by deployment of Kurdish
gunmen in the area.
More than 100,000 people
have been killed in the conflict and millions have been driven out of
their homes, seeking shelter in safer areas of the country or in the
neighboring Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.
Activists
also reported that an Italian Jesuit priest, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio,
has gone missing while on a trip to the rebel-held northeastern city of
Raqqa. Dall'Oglio is an Assad opponent who was expelled last year from
Syria, where he had lived for 30 years.
He
reportedly went in to Raqqa to meet with al-Qaida-linked militants
there. On Saturday, he posted on his Facebook page in Arabic that he
felt happy to be in a "beautiful, free" city. Videos posted online
showed him surrounded by a boisterous crowd in Raqqa this past weekend,
giving a speech.
The Observatory said
Dall-Oglio had told an activist in the city Monday that he was going to
meet with the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. It
was not clear whether he was still on his mission or had been abducted.
Earlier
in the day, mortar attacks and air raids in two major cities in Syria
killed at least 17 people, activists and government officials said.
The
deadliest attack struck the central city of Homs, which has been an
opposition stronghold since the beginning of the two-year conflict and
is now the target of a withering offensive by President Bashar Assad's
forces.
Three mortars slammed into a
government-held district of Dablan before dawn Tuesday, killing 10
people and wounding 26 others, a government official. He said many
living in the neighborhood fled there to escape fighting elsewhere in
Homs. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with
regulations for civil servants.
The
Observatory said 11 people - including a child - were killed. It cited
hospital officials and also said attack happened late Monday close to
midnight.
Homs has been the center of protests
against Assad's rule since the Syrian revolt started in March 2011. In
recent weeks, the city has been the scene of fierce fighting between
Assad's troops and rebels fighting to topple his regime. On Monday,
government troops captured Homs' strategic area of Khaldiyeh after a
monthlong battle, bringing Assad's regime closer to its goal of
capturing all of Syria's third largest city.
In northern Syria, regime warplanes hit the town of Andan, killing seven people, including five children, the Observatory said.
---
Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.
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