Syrian rebels urge rival groups to end infighting

Six Syrian rebel groups called on al-Qaida and its rival Western-backed rebels to end their infighting in northern Syria as international inspectors tasked with overseeing the destruction of the government's chemical arsenal pressed on with their second full day of work in the country on Thursday.

The inspectors' mission — endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution last week — is to scrap Syria's capacity to manufacture chemical weapons by Nov. 1 and to destroy the entire stockpile of President Bashar Assad's estimated 1,000-ton arsenal of chemical weapons by mid-2014, according to AP.

 They are working against the backdrop of a relentless civil war that has pitted a wide array of opposition fighters and groups against Assad's troops and pro-government militiamen in all major cities and their surroundings.

 The conflict, now in its third year, has recently become even more complex, with rebel groups turning their guns on one another — particularly in the north where opposition fighters are now battling over territory they captured together from government troops in the past year.

 The rebel infighting underscores the immense security challenges that the international weapons experts face as they work amid the civil war to meet tight deadlines.

 In a statement released late Wednesday, six rebel groups urged the two major rebel factions battling each other around the town of Azaz near the border with Turkey to "cease the fire immediately" and resolve their differences before an Islamic court.

 The two major factions are al-Qaida's Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant on one side, and the Western-backed Free Syrian Army's Northern Storm Brigade on the other.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents the civil war and also the rebel-on-rebel fighting, said those that signed the appeal included the Islamic Army, the Tawheed Brigade and Ahrar al-Sham group — all affiliated with the Western-backed FSA alliance.

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