Top ISIS commander killed in Homs

The State of Iraq and al-Sham commander in Homs has been killed on Tuesday; both Assad’s forces and rebel fighters claimed his killing.

“During clashes which took place between two militant groups in al-Rastan town in Homs province Abu al-Qaqa al-Tunisi was killed,” a military source told the Syrian state news agency.

Two other terrorists were also killed along with Al-Tunisi during the same clashes, SANA said.

Activists assured that Rebels had killed al-Tunisi in al-Za’faraneh district east al-Rastan in response to ISIS’s assassination attempts of rebel leaders.

Meanwhile, several mortar shells fell on the besieged neighborhoods of Homs along with violent clashes between regular forces and Islamic battalions in the perimeter of the Jouret al-Shiyah neighborhood, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said

Activists reported killing a child gilr and many others injured in al-Waer neighborhood.

In relevant development, the head of al Qaeda's Syrian arm has given ISIS’s militants five days to accept mediation to end their infighting or face a war which will "eradicate" them, according to an audio recording posted on Tuesday.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of the Nusra Front, called on the Islamic State in Iraqand the Levant (ISIL) to agree to arbitration by religious scholars to end more than a year of feuding which has turned violent.

Golani's ultimatum comes two days after senior al Qaeda member Abu Khaled al-Soury was killed in a suicide attack in Syria. Nusra accused ISIL of killing him, a charge sources close to the splinter group have denied.

Sources on both sides said Golani's statement, the first since tensions between the two groups erupted, was a declaration of war.

"We will wait for five days from the date of this recording for your formal reply," Golani said in the audio tape, posted on an Islamist web site.

"By God, if you reject God's ruling again and do not put an end to your plague against the Umma (Muslim nation), then the Umma will launch an assault against this ignorant ideology and will eradicate it, even from Iraq," he said.

ISIL, which has attracted many foreign militants to its ranks, is a small but powerful force that emerged from the Sunni Islamist insurgency in neighbouring Iraq. (With Reuters and Fars news)