International
The head of Al-Qaeda's wing in Syria has given rival Islamist militants five days to accept mediation to end their infighting or face a war that "will terminate them," according to an audio recording posted on Tuesday.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of Al-Nusra Front, called on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to agree to arbitration by religious scholars to end more than a year of feuding which has turned violent in some areas in Syria.
Heavy clashes between the two groups and other fighters in rebel-held northern and eastern Syria have led to hundreds of deaths and have undermined the wider military campaign against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
"We will wait for five days from the date of this recording for your formal reply," Golani said in the audio tape, released on an Islamist web site.
"By God, if you reject God's ruling again and do not put an end to your plague against the Umma (Muslim nation), then the Umma will launch an assault against this ignorant ideology and will terminate it, even from Iraq," he said.
The fighting broke out at the start of the year when several rebel groups launched what appeared to be coordinated attacks on ISIL fighters, who have alienated many Syrians in the areas under their control.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in fighting between the group and other factions, including Nusra Front.
The warning comes two days after the killing of Abu Khaled al-Suri, who had acted as Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri's representative in Syria.
Rebels and activists believe he was assassinated by two suicide bombers from the ISIL.
Golani's Nusra Front, which has sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Zawahri, had until then avoided openly confronting ISIL, with which it shares a radical ideology, despite deep rivalry and tensions between the two groups.
Al-Qaeda has dissociated itself from ISIL.
The Iraq-based group has angered other factions with its brutal tactics and harsh laws in areas it controls in the northeast.
In his statement, Golani differentiated between ISIL and the Western-backed rebel Supreme Military Command and the opposition National Coalition, both of which he described as infidel groups.
Syria's nearly three-year civil war has seen some rebel groups become radicalized and the opposition splinter, undermining the rebels' fight against the Assad regime.
Activists estimate at least 130,000 people have been killed in the conflict, while more than 2 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries.
Al Jazeera and Reuters
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