Syrian rebels said Saturday they fear being sucked into a "side war" with jihadists as claims about an overnight attack on a weapons depot at their Idlib headquarters threatened to push the opposition deeper into a spiral of infighting.
The friction between Western-backed Free Syrian Army factions and the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Levant has reached a critical pitch since the assassination Thursday of an FSA rebel commander. FSA leaders have said they fear that hardline jihadists are trying to hijack their revolution and are working to wrest control from moderate factions in rebel-held areas.
An altercation at the FSA's headquarters in the northwestern province of Idlib early Saturday — reported by both activists and rebels — spurred fears that hostilities would escalate. Claims that Islamic State fighters were responsible for the attack, which took place while the FSA chief of staff, Gen. Salim Idriss, was traveling, could not be independently verified. One rebel battalion attributed it to "unidentified armed groups," and activists said air raids took place in the area about the same time, casting some doubt on the claims that a rebel group had carried it out.