The five-day ultimatum by the leader of Jabaht al-Nusra (al-Nusra front) - Abu Mohammed al-Golani - to the leadership of the  Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and other Islamist factions, to end fighting or be "expelled" from the region is the latest in the troubled affair between the two al-Qaida affiliates in Syria. 

Al Qaeda has long struggled with controlling its Iraqi offshoot. Now it seems as if Ayman al-Zawahiri has had enough. The level of direct coordination between Al Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan and the group that originally was known as Al Qaeda in Iraq has always been limited - and has appeared pretty much dead since 2006.

A double suicide car bombing at the Bab al-Hawa border post between Syria and Turkey on Monday killed at least 16 people, including six rebels, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, updating an earlier toll, said 20 people were wounded as one car detonated at a checkpoint just outside the crossing and another inside the post.

Fighters from several Syrian rebel brigades seized the headquarters of the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the main northern city of Aleppo, an NGO said Wednesday. "Fighters from several Islamist rebel brigades took control of the children's hospital in the Qadi Askar district, which is the headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the city," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.