Activists: Key al-Qaida militant killed in Syria
BEIRUT (AP) — Activist say a top militant who was the second in command in an al-Qaida-linked group has been killed in Syria in clashes with rival Islamic factions.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a group in the northern province of Aleppo said on Monday that Haji Bakr was killed earlier this month in the town of Tal Rifaat.
The activists say Bakr, an Iraqi citizen and former member of Saddam Hussein's military, was the deputy chief of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Infighting among rebels in Syria's civil war has killed more than 1,400 this month.
A statement posted on a jihadi websites published a photograph of a man with a long grey beard announcing the death of Bakr, who was described as an "honorable sheik."
