BEIRUT-
Syrian activists say a roadside bomb has killed a local al-Qaida leader and his wife, an attack that may ignite new infighting between rebel groups in Syria.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday that Ali al-Nuaimi of the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, and his wife were killed overnight near the town of Busra al-Sham in southern Daraa province.
The Observatory says the killing was an “assassination.” It came just days after Nusra fighters seized a controversial Western-backed Syrian military commander, Ahmad al-Nuaimi. It’s unclear if the two men are related.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the two incidents are connected. But the killing risks igniting rebel infighting in the south, between more moderate Syrian fighters and the hard-line Nusra Front.