Fierce fighting between jihadists and rival rebel groups in Syria has killed almost 700 people in just eight days in early January, a monitoring group said on Sunday.

Fierce fighting between jihadists and rival rebel groups in Syria has killed almost 700 people in just eight days in early January, a monitoring group said on Sunday.
Among those killed were dozens of casualties in 16 suicide attacks staged by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which is battling rebels mainly in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
From January 3 to 11, the fighting killed 697 people, among them 351 rebel fighters, 246 members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and 100 civilians, it said.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the actual number of deaths could be at more than 1,000, but his group has been unable to document all the killings given the ferocious nature of the combat.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists across Syria for its reports, also said there were hundreds of captives from both sides whose fate is unknown.
In a reflection of the brutality of the fighting, which has raged mainly in the northern provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Raqa but has also hit Hama and Homs in the centre, at least 200 people were killed in one 48-hour period.
Dozens of the killings have been in a wave of suicide attacks by ISIS fighters targeting rival rebel positions.
An ISIS commander had warned rival opposition fighters earlier this week of car bomb attacks if they pressed their offensive against the jihadists.
Sixteen suicide attackers have detonated themselves in the past week, most of them in car bomb attacks, some using explosive belts, Abdel Rahman said.
Dozens of people in Aleppo, Idlib, Homs and Raqa provinces have been killed in such attacks, he told AFP.
Suicide bombing most deadly weapon for ISIS
On Saturday alone, 39 rebels were killed in the attacks in Aleppo, Idlib and Raqa provinces, the Observatory said.
A rebel fighter with Ahrar al-Sham, which is leading battles against ISIS in several areas, told AFP they use suicide attacks to terrorise society as a whole into submission, not just the fighters.
It is one of their most deadly weapons...which they use partly for a lack of other means, he said in a Skype call, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Fighting between the two sides raged in parts of Raqa on Sunday after ISIS managed to seize much of the city, which is the only provincial capital to have fallen out of President Bashar al-Assads control.
ISIS, officially categorised as a terrorist organisation last year by Attorney-General George Brandis, is currently involved in a bloody power struggle in several parts of Iraq.


Source: AFP