Scores dead in rebel assault

Fierce clashes in northern Syria between regime loyalists and rebels including al-Qaeda fighters have left more than 70 dead, a monitoring group said yesterday.

Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front launched the assault on Friday with a suicide attack against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Fighting raged around the village of Bashkoy, which lies at a crossroads north of Aleppo city, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The toll included both Syrian and foreign fighters, who have become increasingly common among jihadist groups in the country, where more than 250,000 people have died in the nearly five-year-old war.

YARMOUK CAMP EVACUATION 'ON HOLD'

Meanwhile, a plan to evacuate thousands of jihadist fighters and civilians from three besieged districts of Syria's capital was on hold yesterday, a day after an air strike killed a rebel leader. Zahran Alloush, 44, was the commander of the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), the predominant opposition faction in the Eastern Ghouta rebel bastion east of Damascus.

His death, in a raid claimed by President Bashar al-Assad's regime, was seen as dealing a heavy blow to the nearly five-year uprising and also complicating a fragile peace process.

It also halted the planned evacuation of some 4,000 people, half of them jihadists, from the southern districts of Damascus. Those moved are expected to include members of the Islamic State (IS) group and Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front.