The al-Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front's leader announced Tuesday that rival Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has five days to end their "unjust attacks."
"We have tolerated your slanders and fabrications for about a year not to cause any greater disorder," Abu Mohammed al-Golani said in a recording attributed to him which went viral on Twitter. “You know our brothers in Iraq are merely waiting for a signal from us.”
ISIL is active in Syria’s eastern and northern regions and fights against both the Free Syrian Army and Syrian regime forces in a bid to establish their own sovereign state.
The Western-backed Free Syrian Army main opposition group, along with the Al Nusra Front and the Sunni Islamist Islamic Front, initiated wide-ranging operations against the ISIL toward the end of 2013.
Golani's threat came after the killing of Abu Khaled al-Suri, al-Qaeda'a acting representative in Syria, in a Sunday attack for which ISIL is thought to have been responsible.
Syria’s civil war, which will enter its third year in March, has resulted in the deaths of over 130,000 people and displaced millions, according to the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
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